
OlassJl 



Book.. 






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COWRIGHT DEPOSH5 



FENNO'S 
SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

A condensed and comprehensive treatise on the culture 

of Body, Mind and Voice, to be used in 

connection with 

THE ART OF RENDERING 

Comprising 
Chart of Elocution, Laws of Voice and Action, Artic- 
ulation, Charts and Illustrations. Designed to be 
used as a text-book in the class-room, and 
for private study as well as by readers 
and speakers generally 

By 

FRANK H. FENNO, A M., F. S. Sc. 

Teacher Lecturer, and Author of "Fenno's Elocution," "Lectures 
on Elocution", etc., Compiler of "Fenno's Favorites" 



Revised and Enlarged by 
MRS. FRANK H. FENNO, B. O. 



CHICAGO 

EMERSON W. FENNO, Publisher 

1912 



Copyright 1912 

By 

Mes. Frank H. Fenno. 



t "CU327009 



PREFACE. 



The following work, taught in connection with the" Art 
of Rendering y " has been for a number of years given to 
pupils in notes, and is now published for the first time. 

The principles presented in the two books are not vain 
experiments, for results are manifest in the successful pupils 
who are filling places as teachers, preachers, readers, lectur. 
ers and entertainers. 

No claim is made to present some wonderful, new and 
original system, but both new and old that have been tested 
and found most helpful from Shoemaker, Emerson, Curry, 
Brown, Murdoch, Rush, Austin, Plumptre, Delsarte and 
others, are the sources from which this system is formed. 

In " The Science of Speech "and" The Art of Render- 
ing " are given principles in the simplest, most concentrated 
form, which might easily be expanded into chapters. The 
statements are, as far as possible, shorn of philosophic argu- 
ment, though there is abundant proof for their truthfulness. 
On account of brevity and so that the principles may be 
easily understood, no attention has been given to a fine style 
but, on thecontrary, the matter has been treated with homely 
language and illustrations, with much given in outline, some 
thoughts even repeated. The " Laws " were arranged 
especially for a short course at a Chautauqua Summer 
School. They have since been found useful to busy people. 



iv PREFACE 

In this work, which is the result of the author's careful 
investigations during many years, the unchangeable Laws 
of Voice and Action are developed step by step, formulated 
and taught. In this Natural Scientific Method of Voice 
Culture, Gesture, Enunciation, and Modulation the prin- 
ciple is " Not imitation, but strict conformity to the Laws 
of Speech, and these laws the only basis of criticism. M 
In thus training the speaking voice, the Keynote is Emo- 
tion — Adaptation. 

This New Method, evolved out of old and new truth, is 
with confidence presented to the attention of all desirous of 
improving their vocal powers. It constitutes what might 
almost be termed an exact Science of Speech, based upon 
the facts : 1, that human utterance depends upon immutable 
laws and is not subject to the caprice of every speaker ; 2, 
that imitation is not the faculty through which we should 
acquire knowledge of reading and speaking ; and 3, that 
every person has as distinct an individuality of speech as of 
feature that should be carefully preserved, grafting upon it 
excellencies and pruning it of faults. It is an eminently 
practical system, with no abstruse philosophy and fanciful 
reasoning. 

" The Science of Speech " may be used for lessons one 
day a week in regular daily class work, in connection with 
the Steps in Rendering and other drill found in " The Art 
of Rendering" which should be taken up on the other four 
lesson days ; or the two works may be adapted to suit the 
time for lessons in near this proportion. 

The following Chart of Elocution presents a systematic 
outline of the whole subject and gives an intelligent com- 
prehension of the order of the Laws of Voice and Action. 

Mrs. Frank H. Fenno. 
Chicago, III. March 19th, 1912. 



CONTENTS 

Page 

I. Law of Source 1 

II. Law of Thought Manifestation . 2 

III. Law of Dual Form 3 

IV. Law of Individuality .... 4 
V. Law of Voice Production ... 9 

VI. Law of Voice 9 

VII. Law of Voice Culture .... 9 

VIII. Law of Mechanical to Artistic . . 10 

IX. Law of Resonance 10 

X. Law of Organs 11 

XL Law of Speech 12 

XII. Law of Forms of Speech ... 19 

XIII. Law of Emotional Reading . . 19 

XIV. Law of Articulation 20 

XV. Law of Sounds 20 

XVI. Law of Pronunciation .... 25 

XVII. Law of Mental Grasp . . . .25 

XVIII. Law of Modulation 25 

XIX. Law of Voice Quality . . . .25 

XX. Law of Simple Pure 26 

XXL Law of Orotund 28 

XXII. Law of Aspirate 29 

XXIII. Law of Pectoral 30 

XXIV. Law of Guttural 31 

XXV. Law of Falsetto 32 

XXVI. Law of Pitch 33 

XXVII. Law of Slide 41 

XXVIII. Law of Rising Slides .... 45 

XXIX. Law of Falling Slides .... 53 

XXX. Law of Circumflex 66 

XXXI. Law of Conversational Slides . . 72 

XXXII. Law of Cadence ...... 73 

XXXIII. Law of Force 74 

V 



vi CONTENTS 

Page 

XXXIV. Law of Heavy Force .... 74 

XXXV. Law of Gentle Force . . . . 76 

XXXVI. Law of Form 77 

XXXVII. Law of Effusive Form .... 77 

XXXVIII. Law of Expulsive Form ... 78 

XXXIX. Law of Explosive Form ... 78 

XL. Law of Stress 79 

XLI. Law of Initial Stress .... 79 

XLII. Law of Final Stress ..... 80 

XLIII. Law of Median Stress .... 81 

XLIV. Law of Compound Stress ... 82 

XLV. Law of Thorough Stress ... 84 

XLVI. Law of Tremulous Stress ... 85 

XLVII. Law of Time 88 

XLVIII. Law of Quantity 88 

XLIX. Law of Poetic Pause .... 89 

L. Law of Rhetorical Pauses ... 90 

LI. Law of Grammatical Pauses . . 91 

LIT. Law of Style 92 

LIIL Law of Conversational Style . . 92 

LIV. Law of Oratorical Style . . .104 

LV. Law of Dramatic Style . . . .111 

LVI. Law of Analysis 128 

LVII. Law of Emphasis 128 

LVIII. Law of Grouping . . . . .128 

LIX. Law of Imitative Modulation . .129 

LX. Law of Economy 129 

LXI. Law of Transition 130 

LXII. Law of Climax 132 

LXIII. Law of Repose 132 

LXIV. Law of Responsiveness . . . .132 

LXV. Law of Fervor 133 

LXVI. Law of Relation of Values . . . 134 

LXVII. Law of Proper Atmosphere . . 134 

LXVIII. Law of Magnanimity .... 134 

LXIX. Law of Animation 134 

LXX. Law of Naturalness and Spontaneity 134 

LXXL Law of Directness 135 

LXXII. Law of Imagination 135 

LXXIII. Law of Personation 135 



CONTENTS 



vii 



Page 

LXXIV. Law of Gesture 136 

LXXV. Law of Purpose 136 

LXXVI. Law of Manner 137 

LXXVII. Law of Gesture Quality . . .138 

LXXVIII. Law of Position 138 

LXXIX. Law of Passive Position . . .138 

LXXX. Law of Active Position . . . .138 

LXXXI. Law of Active Advanced Position . 138 

LXXXII. Law of Retired Position . . .139 

LXXXIII. Law of the Feet 139 

LXXXIV. Law of the Head 139 

LXXXV. Law of Facial Expression . . . 140 

LXXXVI. Law of the Hands 140 

LXXXVII Law of the Supine Hand . . .141 

LXXXVIII. Law of the Prone Hand . . .141 

LXXXIX. Law of the Vertical Hand . . .142 

XC. Law of the Pointing Hand . . . 142 

XCL Law of the Clenched Hand . . 143 

XCII. Law of Movements 143 

XCIIL Law of Arms 144 

XCIV. Law of Front Direction . . .145 

XCV. Law of Oblique Direction . . . 145 

XCVL Law of Lateral Direction . . . 145 

XCVII. Law of Backward Direction . . 145 

XCVIII. Law of Horizontal Direction . , 146 

XCIX. Law of Descending 146 

C. Law of Ascending 146 

CI. Law of Double Gestures . . . 146 

CIL Law of Special Gestures . . . 146 

CIII. Law of Straight and Curved Lines . 147 

CIV. Law of Introductory Movements . 147 

CV. Law of Velocity 147 

CVI. Law of Sequence 148 

CVII. Law of Emotions 148 

CVIII. Law of Rhythm ...... 149 

CIX. Law of Poise or Subjugation . . 151 

CX. Law of Sympathy 152 

CXI. Law of Art Periods 153 

CXII. Law of Application ..... 153 



LAWS OT VOICE * ACTION 

WITH 
ILLUSTRATIONS AND STUDIES FOR PRACTICE. 



/. Law of Source. — Tracing back all human 
expression, the starting point in the study of Speech 
is God himself ; Man, the mouthpiece ; Truth, the 
theme ; and God, the author. 

The thoughtful student will find the Law of Source is 
" Multum in Parvo. " In it is a seed-thought which, if 
carefully planted in the mind and heart, will unfold in the 
life yielding graces of speech which seem to be gifts to only 
the chosen few. 

A consciousness of being in the light of the Source of 
Expression offers a safeguard against two displeasing ex- 
tremes : on the one hand, egotism, too great self confidence ; 
on the other hand, timidity and self abasement. Standing 
in this light one may have instead, poise, dignity and ease 
of bearing. 

While our own will has much to do with our thoughts 
and what we are, yet it is possible for us to become passive 
and under the control of a higher will than our own so in 
this way one may receive most helpful thoughts and noble, 
poised feelings. The inspired men do not belong to Bible 
times alone. Wonderful light is given to the men and 
women of this Twentieth Century who learn to listen and 
to expect messages, responding to what is received. The 
light is pouring upon us. We need to be aware of this 
and open the windows of our minds and hearts, too long 
closed to the fact, and let the truth shine in. We may 
know it when it comes for this is the truth that " shall 
make you free. n 



2 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

There are wide differences in the conditions of natures 
and beings, treated in another place. As in matter, so in 
spirit is the principle : the clearer and more transpar- 
ent THE MEDIUM, THE MORE PERFECTLY WILL IT REFLECT 
THE TRUTH. 

To start with, let the mind take its proper attitude, with 
self hidden behind the thought. The thought is worthy. 
Come out from the limitation that boasts " 1 did it, " or 
the distrust of self that says " I cannot do it. M Learn to 
stand in the source of light and to reflect light, not self. 

We find the law of Source of Expression illustrated in 
the familiar picture, St. Cecelia by Naujok. Note how the 
artist has placed his ideal character in a flood of light with 
uplifted, attentive face, listening to the music pouring upon 
her and the keys in flowery gifts by angelic hands. The 
musician so inspired responds to the message simply as it is 
given. There is no appearance of effort, no thought of self, 
or of how to perform the task, or what the listener may 
think. With concentrated attention she seems a transpar- 
ent, responsive medium vibrant with divine music. 

77. Law of Thought Manifestation. — Thought and 

feeling are expressed in but three ways ; Word, Voice, 

and Gesture. Elocution does not include written expres- 
sion. 

The three ways of manifesting thought are direct language 
of the threefold nature : Physical, Mental, and Emotive. 

We find the Word is the language of the Mental side. 

The Voice simply, as in a call or cry, is the language of 
the Physical nature. 

The Gesture, though made with the muscles and the 
physical body, yet Gesture is the language of the Emotive 
nature. We know an infant's first language is voice, second r 



THOUGHT MANIFESTATION 3 

gesture when it shows its feelings by movements of its 
body. Its third language is the word. As it begins to 
think it learns to speak ; thus coming into the three ways 
of manifesting thought and feeling. 

III. Law of Dual Form. — Speech — Elocution — is 
both a Science and an Art : a Science because based 
upon immutable principles : an Art from the fact that 
intelligent, continued practice leads to artistic excellence 
in its use ; and because, like Music, Painting, and Poetry, 
its object is to touch the heart by the expression of the 
Good, the Beautiful, and the True. 

Note 1. — Man's laws are artificial and arbitrary, 
made to govern a particular case or similar cases included 
in one category ; but natural laws are general in their ap- 
plication, and are discovered only by observation ; then if 
correctly formulated, they represent the unerring, guiding 
principles of the world of matter and of spirit. Hence, by 
carefully observing the conditions, tendencies and effects of 
vocal effort, we may be able to formulate a code of Laws of 
universal application, then, if such laws are rightly deduced 
from the phenomena of utterance and truthfully stated, they 
are in no sense artificial and arbitrary, but the infallible 
laws of nature by which she permits man to give expres- 
sion to his thoughts and feelings. 

Note 2. — The player by ear can never execute a 
piece of music, outside his own composition, that he has not 
previously listened to, while the player by note has a whole 
world of harmony at command. So the student of Elocu- 
tion who applies principles has within his reach a wealth 
of expression denied him who merely imitates his teacher's 
tone and manner. The latter not only copies the bad as 
well as the good, but will never excel that which he imitates. 
Imitation is not Education. 



4 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

IV.—- Law of Individuality. — Every person owns 
a distinct individuality of speech that should be care- 
fully preserved \ grafting upon it excellencies and prun- 
ing it of faults. 

Note 1. — As you would not expect all individuals 
to look alike, neither ask them to read or speak alike except 
in so far that they observe all the laws of speech. 

Principle: — Not imitation, but strict conform- 
ity to the laws of speech and action and these 
laws the only basis of criticism. 

The student is asked to look back of the fact that no two 
persons are alike for the cause and try to find the reasons 
why no two persons should speak alike or act alike. All 
are aware of the truth that no two persons are alike, even 
though one may so closely resemble another as to be mistak- 
en for him, even so, it is soon discovered that the disposition 
or something in the inner life is so different the outer re- 
semblance is soon lost. 

There are standards for testing and weighing nearly every 
material thing, and some elements almost too mysterious to 
be called material, but the real man seems to have escaped 
all standards of measurement. We know we cannot fix a 
standard by the coat he wears, nor by his intellectual attain- 
ments, nor by the money he stands for, nor even by his 
social or his political standing. The real man eludes you. 

In nature all forms of life are distinctly classified from 
the lowest to the highest. First comes inorganic life ; next 
vegetable ; animal ; highest is human life. Let us consider 
one of the elements entering into the steps of advancement 
from one form of life to the next higher. This important 
element is Flexibility, Plasticity, Freedom. The inorganic 



INDIVIDUALITY 5 

life is the lowest in the scale, fixed and rigid; next comes 
the vegetable with its variety and ever changing beauty ; 
next comes the animal life from the lowest forms up to that 
with almost human intelligence. Crowning all other forms 
of life is man, uniting all in one three forms of life ; the 
physical, the mental and the emotive. The three kinds of 
life in man are influenced as are the lower forms, in that 
they rise in the scale of value by this same condition — Flex- 
ibility, Plasticity, Freedom. The brain receives on its folds 
impressions that it retains. We may say the mind has been 
filled with impressions (educated) that once was blank, un- 
taught, and because of the convolutions filled with imprints 
of thought it is transformed into a mind of power. 

When we attempt to study the highest side of human 
life, the emotive or spiritual we enter into the realm of the 
mystical. So plastic and susceptible is this side of the life 
we know of nothing to which it may be compared. It is 
like a breath, a vapor, a cloud. A wave tossed by a gentle 
breeze is not so easily moved as the human spirit. We call 
this side of life emotive because it is so impressionable and 
easily moved. A person in a tranquil, happy mood may 
receive word of sudden disaster and in less time than it takes 
to tell it, the whole being will be thrown into agitation. 

There are not only what might be called the fleeting, 
emotions, like the light waves on the surface of the water 
when the wind plays gently upon it but there are beside the 
profound feelings reaching to the very depths, stirring the 
whole being. Beside these there are the deep passioDS,like 
the troubled sea when it cannot rest but casts up mire and 
dirt. It would seem, as on the storm lashed sea, tranquility 
could never again be restored. The storm passes, the sea 
becomes calm. In the same mysterious way the emotive 
nature is acted upon by influences quite as powerful as the 
storm and may become tranquil in a short period of time. 



6 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

So great is the force of the impressions upon this — the 
most sensitive of all life — the Emotive or Spiritual, we at 
last begin to realize that the health and well-being of the 
individual is ruled largely by these impressions. 

When we find out, too, how a person/eefe about a thing — 
not so much what he thinks — when the feeling hidden in 
the innermost chambers is discovered, there is no more to be 
said. The conclusion of the whole matter is reached and 
we say " he was angry, " or " he was pleased. " 

Two persons may solve a mathematical problem in entirely 
different ways, yet this mental difference is not considered 
a matter of importance ; but if one person so differs in his 
feelings from another as to hate what the other loves, this is 
a difference of wider meaning, for it has to do with the 
largest and most essential part of life. 

Psychologists have made careful investigations and have 
discovered wonderful laws of mind from the action of the 
brain with its faculties of perception, memory, imagination, 
reason, etc. We are beginning to realize that this realm we 
call the Emotive is a great unexplored field waiting to yield 
the richest treasures of all to those who can find out the laws 
of the affectional, passional, ethical, mystical, spiritual life. 
When the laws governing the Emotive or Spiritual are as 
well accepted and applied as those laws of the Mental, then 
the race will doubtless be freed from many limitations. 

Though man stands as a representative of the highest 
form of life on earth, there is a wide difference in being as 
one is compared with another. However wide this may be 
still the rule of Flexibility holds good. The flexible Body 
is in a better condition to perform all its functions than the 
cramped, rigid body. 

The plastic Mind in the pupil is far more teachable than 
the mind that defies the efforts of the teacher. 

The plastic Soul made so by obedience to the Divine 



EXPERIENCE 7 

will, and with feelings of good will toward those around it, 
is far more susceptible and responsive than a soul filled 
with willfulness and pride, and feelings of disregard for his 
fellows. 

This comparison may be carried out in still another way : 
One side of the nature in the individual may be out of har- 
mony with the other two. There may be a flexible, teachable 
mind with a stiff, unresponsive body ; there may be a teach- 
able, open mind with a stiff, selfish, unresponsive soul. Har- 
mony and all-round perfection and balance of the three na- 
tures should be the aim. Many a life is " all out of sorts " 
because of this lack of poise, and fails to find the cause, yet 
may know after harmony is once established. 

While each nature may be trained separately and apart 
from the others, yet in action there is such a close relation, 
such a dependence of one upon the others, that what moves 
one has a reflex influence on the other two. 

The training farthest reaching is that given to the ruler 
of the other two, the spirit. In brief: harmony or poise 
is best secured for the body, mind and spirit by first attun- 
ing the inner liie in harmony with the Infinite. In other 
words : seek to be commanded by the All- wise, cultivate 
the benevolent feelings, love of human welfare, sympathy, 
and appreciation. These feelings take rigidity out of the 
mind and body so they may receive the best and attain to 
the best. Wide differences exist in the Physical, Mental, 
and Emotive natures, yet that culture that gives Flexibility 
is an advantage to the three natures in all persons. 

The student is now asked to consider another important 
cause for differences in individuals. There are impressions 
being stamped continually on this highly sensitive recorder, 
the threefold human life, daily, from the cradle to the 
grave. Let us call these impressions Experiences. 

Think for a moment of a being at the very first, not 



8 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

quite like any other, who has been receiving messages by 
the way of the eye, the ear, through all the five senses, and 
through that mysterious inner sense that brings us in touch 
with influences we can feel but cannot understand. 

Never for an hour is it possible for two persons to have 
exactly the same experiences. Even twins brought up to- 
gether in the same home are not subjected to the same im- 
pressions even for a day. The difference widens in school. 
Still more marked grows the dissimilarity in business and 
society. Day after day makes the experience more complex 
and varied. The life within is so crossed and recrossed that 
a word standing for any common object does not mean just 
exactly the same to them both. 

The student who follows up the line of thought barely 
hinted here will discover abundant reason for wide and 
marked differences in individuals. 

Let each person be fit and content to express his true self. 
Should you happen to be an oak, try to be as grand an oak 
as possible. Should you be a heart's-ease, fill as perfectly 
as possible the place you occupy with beauty and fragrance. 
Let not the peach tree fret itself because it does not bear 
grapes and so fail to bear peaches. It is most unprofitable and 
embarrassing in people when they try to imitate and to be 
other than their own selves. Learn to respect your own 
individuality. It is God given and respected by Him. 

Enrich your experience by accumulating such a wealth of 
noble thought and feeling as to possess a millionaire person- 
ality. Guard most jealously all the avenues of impression, 
especially the eyes, the ears, the heart. Keep the feelings 
poised and pure. Set a watch lest a foe touch and mar the 
sensitive recording plate within, for the impressions, foul or 
fair, made on this record are indelible. In this is no favor. 
Each one must ever keep what he has accumulated. There 
is encouragement for " the poorest is heir to the best. " 



VOICE ^PRODUCTION 9 

V. Law of Voice Production - Speech is the joint 
production of the physical, the mental and the moral 
man, voice being purely physical, intelligent articula- 
tion and modulation, the result of mental conception 
and effort, while all higher spiritual and magnetic 
effects of speech emanate from the moral. 

Note.- "Moral" includes Emotional nature . The 
Physical body produces mechanical tone ; the Intellectual 
governs modulation ; the emotional adds to calm reasoning, 
but without the moral the highest emotions are unknown; 
the voice cannot take on its noblest character, and speech 
falls far short of its divinity . 

VI. Law of Voices The sounds of the voice 
should be under perfect command and the tones full 
and pleasing . 

Note — Voice is the mechanical action of certain 
organs of the body . Breath from the lungs is forced 
through the windpipe and over the vocal cords, the tone 
thus being modified by the cavities of the mouth and nose. 

VII . Law of Voice Culture .— Nature gives body, 
mind and voice, but highest results from each are se- 
cured only through proper training of each, and the 
consequent unfolding of latent powers . Culture of the 
voice should lead to first, its symmetrical development 
and second, to proper use of the vocal organs . 

Note 1 .-- Voice being the principal medium for 
the conveyance of thought between man and man it should 
receive special attention that it may perform its duty in 
the best manner . 

Note 2 .-- Voice culture should consist in 
1. A study of the organs. 2. Breathing exercises. 



10 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

a. Breath is for a twofold purpose, to sustain life and to 
furnish a means of speech . 

b. We should breathe pure air only . 

c . We should acquire the habit of deep breathing, both as a 
matter of health and to procure adequate means and power of 
spetch . 

3. Vocal exercises which give 

a. STRENGTH, b. PURITY. C COMPASS, d . RESONANCE, 
e. AGREEABLENESS . f. FLEXIBILITY, g. BRILLIANCY. 

4. Physical exercises which give 

a. HEALTH, b. STRENGTH. C GRACE . d. IMPROVED TONES . 

VIII. Law of Mechanical to Artistic, or General 
Law of Culture .— All culture whether of body, mind 
or voice is a growth from the crude to the refined, 
and all drill must be in the order of 

1 . Mechanical . 2 . Intellectual . 3 . Artistic . 

Note .- Upon this law must be based all the prac- 
tical work in the study of expression or rendering. 

IX. Law of Resonance .— A high pitched head 
tone being painful to both speaker and hearer, a chest 
tone not sufficiently agreeable and a throat tone of in* 
adequate volume > it is found that by employing Chest 
Resonance, we gain both Ease in use and Character 
in tone . 

Note 1 .— Chest resonance may be described as a 
pure sound formed in the throat and allowed to rever- 
berate throughout the trachea and bronchial tubes ; the 
chest cavity serving as a resonance box to amplify and 
mellow the tone . 

Note 2.— The sound is always formed by the 
vocal cords in the throat ; if confined to that locality 



VOICE ORGANS 11 

and denied resonance, it is called a throat tone ; if the 
stream of sound be directed upward it appears to come 
from the head, a head tone ; if apparently downward, its 
location is referred to the chest, a chest tone . 
Examples — 

Head tone, E • as in knee . 
Throat tone, A . as in ah . 
Chest tone, A . as in awe . 
As thenaresis the centre of the voice, resonance should 
be secured at this point before chest resonance . 

X . Law of Organs .— The voice is produced by 
active and reverberatory vocal organs, and the tones thus 
formed are modified by the articulatory organs or 
organs of speech . 

Note .- The vocal organs are the following :— 

ORGANS OF VOICE. 

I. MOTIVE ORGANS . 

1 .Diaphragm . 2 . Abdominal muscles. 3. Inter- 
costal muscles . 4 . Clavicular muscles . 

II. RETENTIVE ORGAN. 

Lungs . 

III . CONVEYANT ORGAN . , 

Trachea . 

IV. REVERBERATORY ORGANS. 

1 . Larynx . 2. Pharynx . 3 . Trachea .4. Mouth. 

ORGANS OF SPEECH . 
I. ARTICULATORY ORGANS. 

1. Tongue . 2 . Lips . 3 . Palate . 4 . Teeth . 



12 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

XL. Law of Speech .— Speech is the vocal utter- 
ance of thought and the great medium of communi- 
cation between man and man . By it we can convey 
any thought of which the mind is capable, and express 
the entire language of the heart . With capabilities 
almost infinite y and being the special gift of God to 
his chosen creatures, it becomes divine . 

Note. This is the common, restricted use of the 
word speech ; in its broadest sense it may include both 
voice and action . 

" God collected and resumed in man 

The firmaments, the strata, and the lights, 

Fish, fowl, and beast, and insect,- 

All their trains 

Of various life caught back upon his arm, 

Reorganized and constructed man, 

The microcosm, the adding up of works ." 

Mrs. Browning. 

It has been said, we live in one world and bear another 
on our shoulders . " Behold the microcosm !" When 
breathed upon and given the divine gift of Speech we 
may say, " Behold the macrocosm !" Given this little 
globe we carry on our shoulders, with the powers of ar- 
ticulate speech our reach is enlarged into a greater realm, 
even outside the material world, into that of thought and 
feeling, reaching unto the spiritual . 

All things of the material world are condensed into 
words . All our hidden thoughts and feelings, even our 
communications with the Divine Being, all these things 
are taken up and transformed, then breathed out in words 
touching those around us with marvelous power for weal 



SPEECH 13 

or woe , So of speech we may say ; it is i( the adding 
up of works. ' ' 

The study of the history and growth of language is of 
profound interest . In F. Max Muller's lectures on the 
"Science of Language,"he says, "Without language 
thought could advance but little ." 

There is an intimate relation between the thought and 
the word . As we speak, we think ; as we think, we speak. 

In the child the ability to speak and the ability to 
think advance together . Thus it continues on in after 
life . A speech defect is also an ear defect, back of which 
often lies a thought defect . We find with the cure of 
the speech defect the mind is also improved . The limit- 
ed child rejoices in freedom from its limitations and enters 
into a new and better atmosphere of life , Not the child 
alone but a person of any age often may have a defect of 
speech easily cured . Some forms of deafness may be treat- 
ed by attention to the speech, being careful to pronounce 
correctly all the elementary sounds, giving special drill 
on the sounds to which the ear is deaf . 

The words we speak affect our feelings as well as our 
thoughts in a decided and powerful way . Much that we 
earnestly covet of good in every day life may be turned 
our way by observing some of the laws governing speech 
aside from those of Spelling and Grammar . 

Says James of the tongue, "Therewith bless we God 
and therewith curse we men ." Even more is true , for 
therewith we bless ourselves or curse ourselves . 

The Book which is also wonderfully scientific says, 
"Every idle word that men shall speak they shall give 
account thereof in the day of judgment ." Even more is 
true for w T e must account to ourselves immediately . 

We all know that the words we speak do not return to 
us void, as they instantly rebound to their source . 



14 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

It would seem that the thought expressed in words gives 
a direct connection with some unseen, wireless current of 
like character, of the same kind of spirit and vibration as 
that sent out, which responds instantly . If the words be 
glad ; ringing back to our own soul comes the echo • If 
the words be bitter, our whole being is shriveled with the 
message that comes back . Go through the whole gamut 
of thoughts and feelings, whatever key we sound the vi- 
bration rings true within ourselves . We can well afford 
to " Clothe worthy thoughts in chaste, and elegant lan- 
guage," if for no other reason than for the sure benefits to 
ourselves . 

An aid in our efforts to acquire the use of good language 
is good society, especially the society of those who not 
only bring us out but of those who bring out of us the 
best there is in us . Another aid is the study of good 
books . Familiarity with the language of the best authors, 
the best literature, is an aid in the use of good language . 

Out of the great variety of talkers let us consider the 
petty as contrasted with the great. 

There are those who talk right on regardless of an ear 
to listen . Thoughtless chatter is a waste of energy. 

He who gives nothing through his speech receives in 
the same proportion . 

Speech in a wider sense, as used by the public speaker, 
has still another and larger phase . In this form of speeeh 
the thought and language are magnified . 

The ability to think on the feet calls into action all the 
energy and greatest intensity of thought possible . Few 
comparatively are possessed with this rare ability, and they 
by it are the rulers of men . Where great problems requir- 
ing the best thought of many minds fused together for so- 
lution ;for example, great political questions involving the 
welfare of a nation, are settled by the men who are able to 



PUBLIC SPEAKING 15 

think on their feet and take advantage of situations as they 
develop. The ability to think on the feet is not as some 
may suppose a gift of the gods, but is cultivated and grown 
by slow degrees . 

In tracing the history of these giants of power, we find 
that some of them made their first appearance in a very 
humble way ; often it has taken place in some country 
schoolhouse on Friday afternoon, when they"spoke apiece'* 
and first experienced a thrill of inspiration for their bash- 
ful efforts . Following them, we find they appear again 
and later they learn to take advantage of the opportunities 
for public speaking . Original matter comes in play for 
literary societies and debates. Each effort gives additional 
ability and courage, till the world feels the influence of 
men who can not only speak in public but think in 
public and sway the minds of assemblages of men . 

Says Macintosh in his " White Sunlight of Potent 
Words," "Of speech, the might and magic of the spok- 
en soul, not scripture, the written soul - Speech, hot, glow- 
ing, fresh born, fire-kindling speech, that indeed is more 
than kingly power ; the tongue is the glory of man . " 

Says Hackel, "Nothing can have transformed and en- 
nobled the faculties 1 of the brain of man so much as 
the acquisition of language . " 

" If a man offend not in word the same is a perfect man ." 

" The tongue of man is a sacred organ . Man, himself 
is definable in Philosophy as an 'Incarnate word .* The 
word not there, you have no man there either, but a Phan- 
tasma instead ." 

While "speech is silver and silence golden, " "Silence 
may be ignorance, unreadiness, cowardice, falsehood, trea- 
son, base consent to what is evil ." 

The Old Testament has a triple idea of the highest 
manhood; Prophet, in other words, Orator, Priest and King. 



16 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

The greatest was the Prophet . The King and Priest 
must be a Prophet as well . 

Still is it true at the present time, the leaders of men, 
the ministers of sacred things, must have the power to per- 
suade, to command ; must have the tongue of a Prophet . 

u It appears that your tongue, which an old Hebrew 
poet says is the best member you have, is potentially not 
only an artist, but a philosopher and a scientist and a phi- 
lanthropist, a reformer and a nurse, and a ward visitor - 
indeed, a kind of whole Bureau of Labor and of Charities 
at once . " 

Says F . Max Muller : " That there is in us an animal, 
ay, a bestial nature, has never been denied ; to deny it 
would take away the very foundation of psychology and 
ethics . We cannot be reminded too often that all the 
materials of our knowledge we share with the animals ; 
that, like them, we begin with sensuous impressions, and 
then, like ourselves, and like ourselves only, we proceed 
to the general, the ideal, and the eternal . We cannot 
too often be reminded that we are like the beasts of the 
field, but that like ourselves and like ourselves only we 
can rise superior to our bestial self and strive after what 
is unselfish, good, and Godlike . The wing with which we 
soar above the sensuous was called by men of old the ogos ; 
the wing with which we soar above the sensual was called 
by good men of old daiminiori. Let us take continual 
care, especially within the precincts of the temple of Science, 
lest by abusing the gift of Speech, or doing violence to 
the voice of conscience, we soil the two wings of our soul, 
and fall back through our own fault to the dread level of 
the gorilla ." 

Says Henry Ward Beecher of the Tongue, " When 
St . James says, ' If a man offend not in word, the same is 
a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body' 



THE TONGUE 17 

one is at first surprised . It would seem to place the sum 
of virtue in a very little thing . But a larger experience 
of life would change our opinion . The tongue is the ex- 
ponent of the soul . It is the flame which it issues, as the 
lightning is the tongue of the clouds . It is the sword of 
anger, the club of brutal rage, the sting of envy . It is 
the soul's right hand, by which it strikes with wasting 
power . On the other hand, the tongue is the soul's voice 
of mercy ; the string on which its love vibrates as music ; 
the pencil with which it fashions its fairest pictures ; the 
almoner of its gifts ; the messenger of its bounties ! 

By speech a man may touch human life within and 
without . No sceptre has such power in a king's hand as 
the soul hath in a ready tongue ; which also has this ad- 
vantage, that well uttered words never die, but go sound- 
ing on to the end of the world, not lost when seemingly 
silent, but rising and falling between the generations of 
men, as ships rise and fall between the waves, hidden at 
times, but not sunken . A fit speech is like a sweet and 
favorite tune • Once struck out it may be sung or play- 
ed forever . It flies from man to man and makes its nest 
in the heart as birds do in trees . 

This is remarkably exemplified in maxims and proverbs . 

A generation of men by their experience prove some 
moral truth, and all know it as a matter of consciousness . 

By and by some happy man puts the truth into words, 
and ten thousand people say he got that from me ; for a 
proverb is a child born from ten thousand parents . 

Afterwards the proverb has the liberty of the world. 

A good proverb wears a crown and defies revolution or 
dethronement . It walks up and down the earth an in- 
visible knight-errant helping the needy . A man might 
frame and set loose a star to roll in its orbit, and yet not 
have done so memorable a thing before God as he who 



18 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

lets go a golden-orbed speech to roll on through the gen- 
erations of time . 

The tongue may be likened to an organ, which, though 
but one instrument, has within it an array of different 
pipes and stops, and discourses in innumerable combina- 
tions . If one man sits before it not skilled to control its 
powers, he shall make it but a monstrous jargon. But 
when one comes who knows its ways, and has control of its 
powers, then it becomes a mountain of melody, and another 
might well think he heard the city of God at the hour of 
its singing . The tongue is the key-board of the soul ; but 
it makes a world of difference who sits to play upon it . 
It is sweeter than honey; it is bitterer than gall. It is 
a balm and consolation ; it is sharper than a serpent's tooth. 
It is a wand that touches with hope and lifts us up; 
it is a mace that beats us down, and leaves us wounded up- 
on the ground . One trumpet, but how different the blasts 
blown upon it, by love, by joy, by humility, or by hatred, 
pride, anger ! 

A heart that is full of goodness, that loves and pities, 
that yearns to invest the richest of its mercy in the souls 
of those that need it — how sweet a tongue hath such a 
heart ! A flute sounding in the wood, in the stillness of 
evening, and rising up among the leaves that are not stirred 
by the moonlight above, or by those murmuring sounds 
beneath ; a clock, that sighs at half-hours, and at the full 
hours beats the silver bell so gently, that we know not 
whence the sound comes, unless it falls through the air 
from heaven, with sounds as sweet as dewdrops make, fall- 
ing upon flowers ; a bird whom perfumes have intoxicated, 
sleeping in a blossomed tree, so that it speaks in its sleep 
with a note so soft that sound and sleep strive together, 
and neither conquers, but the sound rocks itself on the 
bosom of sleep, each charming the other; a brook that 



FORMS OF SPEECH 19 

brings down the greetings of the mountains to the meadows 
and sings a serenade all the way to the faces that watch 
themselves in its brightness;- these, and a hundred like 
figures, the imagination brings to liken thereunto the 
charms of a tongue which love plays upon . 

Even its silence is beautiful . Under a green tree we 
see the stream so clear that nothing is hidden to the bot 
torn . We cast in round, white pebbles to hear them plash, 
and to see the crystal-eyed fish run in and sail out again . 
So there are some whose speaking is like the fall of jas- 
per stones upon the silent river, and whose stillness follows 
speech as silent fish that move like dreams beneath the un- 
troubled water ! It was in some such dreaming mood, me- 
thinks, Old Solomon spoke, 'A wholesome tongue is a 
tree of life . ' And what fruit grows thereon he afterwards 
says, 'A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in bas- 
kets of silver.' " 

XII . Law of Forms of Speech .— Conversation, 
Reading and Public Speaking constitute distinct forms 
of speech, in all three of which a natural delivery 
should be employed . 

Note .- The key to natural delivery, except in 
Personation, is the manner in which you, with no wrong 
habits of utterance, would express the same language, if 
original with yourself and used under similar circum- 
stances . 

XIII. Law of Emotional Reading. ,— In reading, 
always convey with the thought the impression the 
thought should make upon you and the feeling it 
should awaken . 

Note 1.- Since the highest aim in reading or 
speaking is to reproduce in your hearer's minds the same 



20 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

knowledge and state of feeling contained in your own, 
it follows that to do this successfully you must 

1 . Have a clear comprehension of the thought . 

2 . Be impressed by it • 

3 . By an effort of the will if necessary, feel the 
emotion you express . 

Note 2 .- The law of mechanical to artistic applied 
to Beading gives 

1 . Mechanical . 

2 . Intelligent . 

3 . Emotional . 

Note 3 — The first key-note in speech is emotion . 

XIV . Law of Articulation .— Enunciation should 
aim at Correctness, depending on the right position of 
the speech organs , and Distinctness, the result of the 
proper and energetic use . 

Note 1 .- In articulation the flow of vocalized and 
partly vocalized breath is so acted upon by the proper 
organs that many different sounds are produced, and these 
uttered singly or in groups are recognizable as words con- 
veying ideas . 

Note 2 . The term articulation strictly means the 
act of modifying the tone by the articulatory organs, but 
is used in a wider sense as that department of elocution 
treating of sounds and their production • 

XV. Law of Sounds .— In speech the body of 
sound \ the vowels, should be rich and resonant, and 
the consonants, while pronounced correctly and distinct- 
ly, must not receive undue force . Proper drill on the 

sounds will insure a smooth, agreeable, musical voice . 
Note 1 . " Mouthing"" is the result'.of an overstrain- 
ed utterance of the consonant sounds • 



ELEMENTARY SOUNDS 21 

Note 2 .- A fair test of refinement and vocal educa- 
tion is found in the pronunciation of the short vowels in 
unaccented syllables, as in solemn, government, criticism . 

The terminations ar, er, or and ur should not be pro- 
nounced exactly alike, though the slight force given to 
those syllables renders the distinction practically one of po- 
sition of organ rather than difference in sound . Too 
much force on the unaccented vowel marks the superfine 
scholar . 

Note 3 .- Tones of the voice express feeling, not 
thought ; illustrated in a cry of pleasure or of pain . 

Note 4 Voice should reflect character . The 

most melodious speech is empty unless given moral tone- 
color by true manhood or womanhood behind it. 
Nobility of soul adds a wealth of richness to the human 
voice ; consequently all voice culture that does not include 
genuine moral culture is barren of highest results. 

The study of Elocution or Expression brings forward 
into action a wider range of faculties than any other study; 
all those of the body, all those of the mind . Every 
shade of feeling, every form of thought, every mode of 
utterance, is studied and reproduced . The intellect is 
quickened, the reasoning powers brought into requisition, 
and the analytic faculty developed . The body attains to 
a greater dignity and suppleness, and the mind a broader 
scope, while the soul expands with grand and lofty ideals . 

Note 5 . The sounds of the English language are 
1 . Vocal sounds, the expiring column of breath 
being wholly vocalized . 

a . Simple sounds admitting of no change 
in the position of the articulatory organs during the pro- 
gress of the tone. 

1 . Long : e, oo ; a, as in ah . 
2 . Short : a, e, i, o, u, oo . 



22 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

b . Dipthongal sounds, consist of two al- 
most inseparable sounds . Long a, i, o, u, oi, ou. 

c . Coalescent sounds, consist of a vowel 
inseparably joined to r : ar, er, or, ur . 

2. Aspirate sounds, the expiring column of 
breath being wholly unvocalized . 

a . Pure Aspirate, breath only : h. 

b . Impure Aspirate, breath modified by 
the articulatory organs . Explodents, percussive sounds 
k, p, t, ch, wh . Continuants, those capable of indefinite 
prolongation , f , s, sh, th . 

3 . Combined sounds, the expiring column of 
breath is partly vocalized . 

a . Continuants: 1, m, n, r, v, z, zh, ng, th. 
b . Suppressives, in which the sound is 
obstructed or partially suppressed : b, d, g, j, w, y, 

Total number of sounds 46 . 

Note 6 .- Sounds are classified as — 

Labials — when modified by the lips . 
Palatals — when modified by the palate . 
Dentals — when modified by the teeth . 
Linguals — when modified by the tongue . 
Nasals — when modified by the nasal cavity . 

Liquids are — 1, m, n, r. 

Sibilants are— s, z . 

Note 7 .- Cognates are sounds which occur in pairs 
one vocalized and the other not, the organs being in the 
same position for both . 

Note 8.- Equivalents are substitute sounds as — 
for long a, Gaol, aid, gauge, lay, yea, weigh, rein, they, aye. 

Note 9 — »For Exercises in Consonant Combinations 
seeFenno's Elocution, pages 23, 24, 78, 79, 242. 



CONSONANT SOUNDS 



23 



ORGANICAL TABLE OF CONSONANT SOUNDS, 
SHOWING COGNATES 



Pure . 








ts; 
u 


pirate 


Combined 


Labial 








n. 

p, wh, . . 


b, w. 


Palatal 








k, . . . 


g. 


Dental 








t, ch, s, sh, 


d, j, z, zh. 


Lingual 










l,r. 


Nasal — 


abial . 










m. 


Nasal — ] 


ingual 










n. 


Nasal — ] 


palatal 










ng. 


Lingua — 


■ palatal 










y. 


Lingua — 


- dental 






'. th, 




th. 


Labio — 


dental 






• f, 




v. 




TABLE OF CONTRASTS 


prince 


prints ducks 


ducts 


mince 


mints false 


faults 


sense 


cents reflex 


reflects 


dense 


dents tens 


tends 


tense 


tents wrens 


rends 


chance 


chants fens 


fence 


tracks 


tracts relics 


relicts 


axe 


acts instance 


instants 


sex 


sects incidence 


incidents 


Note] 


LO. — Practice the following exercise in Transi- 


tion and Repetition : 






S, sh. This ship. 






s, y. I shall miss you. 






s, z. Less zeal. 






sh, z. Fresh zephyrs. 






st, s. Sweetest song. 






st, sh. Largest shop. 






s, s. False sounds. 






sh, sh. Hush, Charlotte! 






z, z. As zealous. 






st, st. Severest storms. 




Note 


11. — Spell phonetically some complete selec- 


tion. 















24 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

TABLE OF ELEMENTARY SOUNDS 

For practice. 

Voice Sounds 



ate — a 


earn — e 


use — u 


father — a 


end — e 


up — u 


all — a 


ice — 1 


urn — u 


at — a 


it — I 


ooze — oo 


air — a 


old — 5 


book — 6o 


ask — a 


orb — 5 


oil — oi 


eve — e 


on — o 
Breath Sounds 


out — ou 


fur — f 


pay — p 


chat — ch 


her — h 


sat — s 


she — sh 


kid — k 


ten — t 

Combined Sounds 
Voice and breath 


thin — th 
when — wh 


bay — b 


may — m 


yea — y 


day — d 


nay — n 


zone — z 


gay — g 


rare — r 


azure — z 


jay — j 


vane — v 


they — th 


lay — 1 


way — w 


long — ng 



PRONUNCIATION 25 

XVI . Law of Pronunciation .— The usage of our 
best educated people, after eliminating provincialisms, 
if any exist, shall be the standard of pronunciation . 

Note 1 .- The Dictionaries aim to reflect the usage 
of educated people . Pronunciation, however, like lan- 
guage, being a matter of growth, is subject to change . 
In pronunciation, we must respect the genus of the lan- 
guage and the opinion of philologists . 

XVII. Law of Mental Grasp r- Thought should 
so take hold on words as to give to speech a mental 
value apart from the mere loudness of the sound. 

Note 1 .- With a free, responsive voice and body 
and the thought and feeling living in the mind at the mo- 
ment of utterance, the truest expression will follow. 

Note 2 .- Voice without mind is mere noise and 
vulgarity . Shakespeare says, " It is the mind that makes 
the body rich ." 

XVIII. Law of Modulation .- Expression being 
intelligent utterance by means of modulation of the 
voice, we use successive changes of Quality, Pitch, 
Force and Time as will most clearly convey and fix 
the thought . 

Note.-- Quality, Pitch, Force and Time are termed 
Elements of Modulation . 

XIX. Law of Voice Quality.— Quality is the 
Kind of voice . Pure in normal, genial and exalted 
moods, and Impure when under control of the baser 
passions or depressing emotions . 

Note .- The Pure Qualities are Simple Pure, and 
Orotund ; the Impure Qualities are Aspirate, Pectoral, 
Guttural and Falsetto , 



26 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

XX. Law of Simple Pure.— Tranquility requires a 
clear y smooth, agreeable tone — the Simple Pure Quality. 

Note .- The term Tranquility as used in this trea- 
tise, is always understood to mean the natural or normal 
state of mind, perfectly free from emotion . It is illustrat- 
ed in the reading of a list of facts . 

Examples of Tranquility — 

STILLNESS OF NIGHT 

" All heaven and earth are still, — 
Though not in sleep . 

But breathless as we grow when feeling most ; 
And silent as we stand in thoughts too deep — 
All heaven and earth are still . From the high host 
Of stars to the lulled lake and mountain coast, 
All is concentrated in a life intense, 
Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, 
But hath a part of being, and a sense 
Of that which is of all, Creator and Defence . " 

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank ; 
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music 
Creep in our ears . Soft stillness and the night 
Become the touches of sweet harmony . 
Sit Jessica, look how all the floor of heaven 
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold . 
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st 
But in his motion like an angel sings, 
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubin, 
Such harmony is in immortal souls; 
But while this muddy vesture of decay 
Doth grossly close us in we cannot hear it . 



PURE TONE 27 



TRANQUILITY IN NATURE . 

We wander'd to the Pine Forest that skirts the Ocean's foam ; 
The lightest wind was in its nest, the tempest in its home . 
The whispering waves were half asleep, the clouds were gone to play. 
And on the bosom of the deep the smile of Heaven lay ; 
It seem'd as if the hour were one sent from beyond the skies 
Which scattered from above the sun a light of Paradise ! 
We paused amid the pines that stood the giants of the waste, 
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude as serpents interlaced, — 
And soothed by every azure breath that under heaven is blown 
To harmonies and hues beneath, as tender as its own : 
Now all the tree-tops lay asleep, like green waves on the sea, 
As still as in the silent deep the ocean-woods may be . 
We paused beside the pools that lie under the forest bough; 
Each seem'd as 't were a little sky, gulf'd in a world belo* • 
A firmament of purple light, which in the dark earth lay, 
More boundless than the depth of night, and purer than the day— 
In which the lovely forests grew as in the upper air, 
More perfect both in shape and hue than any spreading there . 
There lay the glade and neighboring lawn, and through the dark 

green wood 
The white sun twinkled like the dawn out of a speckled cloud, 
Sweet views which in our world above can never well be seen, 
Were imaged by the water's love of that fair forest green : 
And all was interfused beneath with an Elysian glow, 
An atmosphere without a breath, a softer day below . 

Shelley . 

Now the first stars begin to tremble forth 
Like the first instruments of an orchestra 
Touched softly, one by one,^ There in the East 
Kindles the glory of moonrise : how its waves 
Break in a surf of silver on the clouds ! — 
White, motionless clouds, like soft and snowy wings 
Which the great Earth spreads, sailing round the Sun . 
O silent stars J that over ages past 
Have shone serenely as ye shine to-night, 
Unseal, unseal the secret that ye keep ! 
Is it not time to tell us why we live ? 

sui 



28 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

XXI. Law of Orotund.— Grandeur, sublimity ', 
reverence, adoration, impassioned utterance and ad- 
dress, shouting, stern command and poetic fervor re- 
quire a round, full, flowing monotone — the Orotund 
Quality . 

Examples of Orotund — 

ossian's address to the sun. 

O thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my 
fathers ! Whence are thy beams, O sun ! thy everlasting 
light ? Thou comest forth in thy awful beauty ; the stars 
hide themselves in the sky : the moon, cold and pale, sinks 
in the western wave ; but thou thyself movest alone • 
Who can be a companion to thy course ? The oaks of the 
mountain fall ; the mountains themselves decay with years; 
the ocean shrinks and grows again ; the moon herself is 
lost in heaven, but thou art forever the same, rejoicing 
in the brightness of thy course . When the world is dark 
with tempests, when the thunder rolls and lightning flies, 
thou lookest in thy beauty from the clouds, and laughest 
at the storm, but to Ossian thou lookest in vain, for he be- 
holds thy beams no more ; whether thy yellow hair flows 
on the eastern clouds, or thou tremblest at the gates of the 
west . But thou art perhaps like me , for a season ; thy 
years will have an end . Thou shalt sleep in thy clouds, 
careless of the voice of the morning. Exult, then O sun, 
in the strength of thy youth ! Age is dark and unlovely ; 
it is like the glimmering light of the moon when it shines 
through broken clouds, and the mist is on the hills : the 
blast of the north is on the plain ; the traveller shrinks in 
the midst of his journey • 

Macpherson. 



IMPURE TONE 29 

daniel's interpretation of the king's dream . 

"And in the days of these kingdoms shall the God of 
heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed ; 
and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it 
shall break and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall 
stand forever . Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone 
was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it 
break in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and 
the gold ; the great God hath made known to the king 
what shall come to pass hereafter : and the dream is cer- 
tain, and the interpretation thereof sure . " 

Daniel II .• 44-45 . 

XXII Law of Aspirate .— Fear, secrecy, won- 
der, disgust, awe, dread and ecstatic joy demand the 
half whisper, or Vocal Aspirate Quality : while ex- 
treme caution or secrecy calls for a whisper, or Pure 
Aspirate . 

Examples — 

Macbeth . " I've done the deed ! Didst thou not hear a 
noise ? Hark ! Who lies i' the second chamber ? 
There's one did laugh in's sleep, and one cried 'Murder P 
Methought I heard a voice cry ' Sleep no more ! Macbeth 
doth murder sleep . ' I am afraid to think what I have 
done ; look on't again I dare not . " 
"Macbeth ." Shakespeare. 

Beatrice . " Did he pass this way ? Have you seen him 
brother ? Ah, no ! That is his step upon the stair . 'Tis 
nearer now ; his hand is on the door ! Mother, mother 
if I to thee have ever been a duteous child, now save me. 
He comes ! The door is opening now ! " 
"TheCenci." Shelley. 



30 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

XXIII. Law of Pectoral.— Physical or mental 
suffering, groaning, horror, remorse, despair, and the 
supernatural require a lifeless relaxed action of the 
vocal cords, and a hollow, deep-seated chest tone, term- 
ed Pectoral Quality . 

Note .- Great care should be exercised in the 
practice of the Impure Quality of voice, especially the 
Pectoral and the Guttural . Avery little injudicious drill 
on this quality of voice will undo the most faithful work 
in voice culture and may ruin the voice permanently . 
As a safeguard, the strain must not all be on the voice, let 
the physical body lead in the expression . 

Examples — 

Marley's Ghost . " You will be haunted by three spirits . 
Without their visits you cannot hope to shun the path I 
tread . Expect the first to-morrow night, when the bell 
tolls one. Expect the second on the next night at the 
same hour . The third on the next night, when the last 
stroke of twelve has ceased to vibrate . Look to see me 
no more ; but look that for your own sake yo" remember 
what has passed between us •" 
" Christmas Carol . " Charles Dickens . 

My head is low, and no man cares for me ; 
I think I have not three days more to live ; 
My God has bowed me down to what I am; 
My grief and solitude have broken me 
Nevertheless, know you I am he 
Who married-but that name has twice been changed- 
I married her who married Philip Ray . 
Sit, woman, sit and listen . 
"Enoch Arden" Tennyson, 



IMPURE TONE 31 

XXIV. Law of the Guttural.- The malicious 
passions, such as anger, hatred, spite, loathing, con- 
tempt and defiance require a harsh, tense, throaty 
Guttural Quality . 
Examples — 

THE YORKSHIRE SCHOOL. 

Squeers left the room, and shortly after returned, drag- 
ging Smike by the collar . 

" Now what have you got to say for yourself ? " 

"Spare me, Sir!" 

" O, that's all you've got to say, is it ? Yes, Til flog you 
within an inch of your life and spare you that. " 

One cruel blow had fallen on him, when Nicholas 
Nickleby cried, « Stop . " 

" Who cried, stop ? " 

" I did, this must not go on . " 

" Must not go on ! " 

"Must not go on ! Shall not ! I will prevent it . " 

" Sit down, beggar ." 

"Wretch touch him again at your peril! I will not 
stand by and see it done. My blood is up, and I have 
the strength of ten such men as you . By heaven ! I will 
not spare you if you drive me on ! I have a series of per- 
sonal insults to avenge, and my indignation is aggravated 
by the cruelties practiced in this foul den . Have a care, 
for if you raise the devil in me, the consequences will fall 
heavily upon your own head !" 

Squeers spat at him, and struck him a blow across the 
face. Nicholas instantly sprang upon him, wrested his 
weapon from his hand, and, pinning him by the throat, 
beat the ruffian till he roared for mercy . Then such a 
cheer arose as the walls of Dotheboys Hall had never ech- 
oed before, and would never respond to again . 
"Nicholas Nickleby? Charles Dickens. 



32 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

XXV. Law of Falsetto. — Terror and extreme 
pain take a shrilly shrieking Falsetto Quality, as does 
the imitation of a high-pitched female voice . 

Mr . Squeers having bolted the house door to keep it 
shut, ushered him into a small parlor, where they had not 
been a couple of minutes when a female bounced into the 
room and seizing Mr . Squeers by the throat, gave him 
two loud kisses like a postman's knock, saying — 

" How is my Squeery ? " 
"Nicholas NicMeby ," Charles Dickens. 

dear, my heart will break, I shall go stick stark 
staring wild ! 

Has even a one seen any thing /about the streets like a 

crying lost-looking child ? 
Lawk help me, I don't know where to look, or to run, if 

1 only knew which way — 

A child as is lost about London streets, an especially 

Seven Dials, is a needle in a bottle of hay . 
1 am all in a quiver — get out of my sight, do, you 

wretch, you little Kitty M' Nab ! 
You promised to have an eye on him, you know you did, 

you dirty deceitful young drab . 
Them vile Savoyards ! they lost him once before all 

along of following a Monkey and an Organ : 
O my Billy — my head will turn right round — if he's 

got kiddynapped with them Italians 
They'll make him a plaster parish image boy, they will, 

the outlandish tatterdemalions. 
Billy — where are you, Billy ? — I'm as hoarse as a crow 

with schreaming for ye, you young sorrow ! 
And shan't have half a voice, no more I shan't, for 

crying fresh herring to-morrow . 
"TAe Lost Heir." Hood, 



PITCH OF VOICE 33 

XXVI . Law of Pitch . — Pitch or key of the 
voice while often changing is ever determined by 
the sentiment, being Low, High or Natural, according 
to whether the sentiment is depressed, elevated or nor- 
mal. 

Note 1 . — The element, Pitch, includes degree of 
Pitch, Force, Slide and Cadence. 

Note 2 . — Tranquility takes Natural Pitch, Force, 
Quality, Kate, Time and Pause and requires the speaker's 
unemphatic utterance . 

The Pitch of the voice is governed by the pulse . 
Excitement that quickens the pulse raises the pitch of the 
voice ; that which quiets the pulse lowers the pitch . The 
excitable, nervous person has the shrill, high-pitched voice, 
while the calm, dignified person speaks on the low pitch . 

The influence of the voice in this particular is most 
contagious and magnetic in its effect. One scream has 
often the power to scare away a robber or to start a panic • 
The shrill, high-pitched voice is responsible for much rest- 
lessness and nerve irritation . Such a voice has no place 
in the school-room where it is so often found ; nor in the 
sick-room . The low, quiet voice restores balance, gives 
assurance and does good like medicine . 

To the public speaker attention to the pitch is of utmost 
importance . The excitement and consequent quickening 
of the pulse when a speaker rises to begin, often causes 
him to pitch the voice to a high, strained unnatural key 
which once started is well-nigh impossible to change and 
this alone has caused a failure of many an effort which 
would have been a success had the voice been properly 
pitched at the start . The voice may climb up to a high 
pitch, and make natural changes easily, but started once 
too high it must carry out the whole gamut to the finish . 



34 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

It is possible however, if one is conscious of the fact that 
he has made a bad beginning, to come to a full stop ; in the 
pause, take a breath, strike the low pitch before proceeding. 

Following is a speaker's golden rule — 
" Be self-possessed, 
When most impressed ; 
Begin low . Proceed slow; 
Kise higher ; take fire . " 

Reading is also robbed of its natural expression by a 
high pitch as if the mind were under some unnatural strain. 
In conversation the changes of pitch come easily and natu- 
rally, yet this natural management of pitch is the first 
point to loose in public speaking or in reading . 

Because of the pitch and monotonous flow of words we 
may readily detect a person reading aloud, whom we can- 
not see. 

"The causes of the change of pitch are about the same 
as those which make the branch of a tree, or a leaf upon 
that branch, to grow in a given direction . Wherever 
there is life it will seek outflow in the most unhindered di- 
rection . Life, like water, will flow into the most open 
channel . Monotony is death - ' ' 

A change of the mind or a change in the thought will 
cause a change of pitch, or a leap of i\ie voice from one 
point to another . 

The length of the interval, as well as the length of the 
slide is caused by the intensity of the thought or of the 
emotion. The greater the excitement, the wider the 
interval . 

The study of pitch and slide is complicated and profound 
in some points like Harmony in music . Rush has given a 
comprehensive treatise on the subject. He says there is a 
difficulty in fixing a key in speech like the key-note in 
song, but proper cadence affects the ear in speech like the 



INTERVALS 35 

consumation of a key-note in music . The octave is the 
widest interval of the speaking scale, yet the voice may go 
beyond it , Intervals of a fifth above the current melody 
are generally within the range of the natural voice. 
Intervals of the third are less emphatic and intense than 
the fifth . The rising second is still more limited in ex- 
tent . It is the base of the diatonic melody, conveying plain 
meaning in contrast with passionate states . Plain melody 
with long quantity gives it dignity . 

"He who is continually dealing out thirds, fifths, 
octaves, allows no repose to the ear, and when real cause 
for expression comes, both the ear and the mind are un- 
able to perceive the real meaning : while upon the vocal 
level, so to speak, of the diatonic ground, the expressive 
intervals properly employed come with all pleasing and 
natural effect of variety and contrast . n 

Semitone is universally the sign of animal distress . In 
the call "fire" is an example of the voice rising a semi- 
tone . " fi-yer . " 

Intervals of the fourth, sixth, and seventh may be 
employed for questions, but the thirds, fifths and eighths 
are more easily recognized as definite points on the musical 
instrument and in the human voice . 

Downward intervals may pass through an octave . 
Example — " Well done ! " The downward may pass 
through the shorter intervals as well as the longer . 

The key and interval in speech is much the same as in 
music . The intervals from one pitch to another are con- 
trolled by the action of the mind as will be treated later . 
Intensity of thought and feeling cause the long leaps from 
one pitch to another giving long intervals . 

We may make a short cut of a profound and interesting 
study-yet a study if not carried out far enough has dangers 
of making mechanical readers-by attention to the thought. 



36 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

Generally speaking we may say : a change of pitch is 
caused by a change of the sentiment, of the feeling, or a 
change from one thought to another, as when introducing 
a new subject . 

We should not confound high and low pitch with loud 
and soft voice . On the piano high or low may be played 
loudly or softly > The voice is used in the same way . 

Examples of High Pitch — 

Sing the bridal of nations ! with chorals of love, 
Sing out the war vulture and sing in the dove, 
Till the hearts of the people keep time in accord, 
And the voice of the world is the voice of the Lord ! 
Clasp hands of the nations 
In strong gratulations ; 
The dark night is ending and dawn has begun ; 
Eise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun, 
All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one ! 
16 Christmas Carman . " Wkittier . 

Then there arose on high the universal shrieks of the 
women ; the men stared at each other, but were dumb . 
At that moment they felt the earth shake beneath their 
feet; the walls of the theatre trembled ; and beyond in the 
distance, they heard the crash of falling roofs ; an instant 
more and the mountain-cloud seemed to roll towards them 
dark and rapid, like a torrent ; at the same time it cast 
forth from its bosom a shower of ashes mixed with vast 
fragments of burning stone ! Over the crushing vines, — 
over the desolate streets, — over the amphitheatre itself, — 
far and wide, — with a mighty splash in the agitated 
sea, — fell that awful shower ! Each turned to fly — 
each dashing, pressing, crushing, against the other. 
But darker, larger, mightier, spread the cloud[above them. 
" Last Days of Pompeii. " Lytton . 



MEDIUM OR NATURAL PITCH 37 

Examples of Medium or Natural Pitch — 

Now was the winter gone, and the snow ; and Robin 

the Redbreast, 
Boasted on bush and tree it was he, it was he and no other 
That had covered with leaves the Babes in the wood, and 

blithely 
All the birds sang with him, and little cared for his boasting, 
Or of his Babes in the Wood, or the Cruel Uncle, and only 
Sang for the mates they had chosen, and cared for the 

nests they were building. 
With them, but more sedately and meekly Elizabeth Haddon 
Sang in her inmost heart, but her lips were silent and 

songless . 
Thus came the lovely spring with a rush of blossoms 

and music, 
Flooding the earth with flowers, and the air with melodies 

vernal . 
" Elizabeth . " 1 ongfellow . 

Trust thyself : every heart vibrates to that iron string ♦ 
Accept the place the divine providence has found for you 
the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. 
Great men have always done so, and confided themselves 
childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their percep- 
tion that the Eternal was stirring at their heart, working 
through their hands, predominating in all their being . 
And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind 
the same transcendent destiny ; and not pinched in a 
corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but re- 
deemers and benefactors, pious aspirants to be noble clay 
under the Almighty effort let us advance on Chaos and 
the Dark . Who has more soul than I masters me, though 
he should not raise a finger . Round him I must revolve 
by the gravitation of spirits. 
" Se If -Reliance m n R. W.Emerson . 



38 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

Examples of Low Pitch — 

Tho* world on world in myriad myriads roll 
Round us, each with different powers, 
And other forms of life than ours, 
What know we greater than the soul ? 
On God and Godlike men we build our trust. 
Hush, the Dead March wails in the people's ears : 
The dark crowd moves and there are sobs and tears : 
The black earth yawns : the mortal disappears. 
u Death of the Duke of Wellington . u Tennyson . 

Into the awful death-chamber of the abbey they bore 
him one midnight . He was dying . On the bare floor 
of the death-chamber they sprinkled consecrated ashes in 
the form of a cross . Over these they scattered straw, and 
over the straw they drew a coarse serge cloth . This was 
his death-bed — a sign that in the last hour he was once 
more admitted to the fellowship of his order . From the 
low couch on which he lay he looked at it. Then he 
made a sign to the abbot, in the mute language of the 
brotherhood . The abbot repeated it to one of the attend- 
ant fathers, who withdrew and soon returned, bringing a 
white cowl . Lifting aside the serge cloth, he spread the 
cowl over the blessed cinders and straw . Father Palemon's 
request had been that he might die upon his cowl, and on 
this they now stretched his poor emaciated body, his cold 
feet just touching the old earth-stains upon its hem . He 
lay quite still, with closed eyes. Then he turned them 
upon the abbot and the monks who were kneeling in 
prayer around him, and said, in a voice of great and gen- 
tle dignity : 

" My father — my brethren, have I your full forgive- 
ness?" 

With sobs they bowed themselves around him . 



CHANGE OF PITCH 39 

After this he received the crucifix, tenderly embracing it, 
and then lay still again, as if awaiting death . But finally 
he turned over on one side, and raising himself on one 
forearm, sought with the hand of the other among the 
folds of his cowl until he found a small blood-stain upon 
its bosom . Then he lay down again, pressing his cheek 
against it ; and thus the second time a monk, but even in 
death a lover, he breathed out his spirit with a faint 
whisper — " Madeline . " 

And as he lay on the floor, so now he lies in the dim 
cemetary garth outside wrapped from head to foot in his 
cowl, with its stains on the hem and the bosom . 
■ The White Cowl . " James Lane Men . 

CHANGE OR TRANSITION IN PITCH. 

In the following examples are marked changes in pitch 
with wide intervals as well as a great variety of shorter 
leaps of the voice . In changing from one pitch to another, 
from high to low or from low to high, make the change in 
a pause ; do not think to blend one form into another . 
Principles governing Transition of the Feet apply to the 
voice as well ; both are made for the same cause . In the 
following examples let each pupil for himself, get the full 
thought, then give it expression, giving attention first 
to transitions most marked with wide intervals ; later the 
narrow, yet nevertheless, very important intervals . 

Examples of Change or Transition of Pitch — 

And the wind began to rise, an' I thought of him out at sea, 
An' I felt I had been to blame ; he was always kind to me. 
'Wait a little, my lass, I am sure it'll all come right — * 
An' the boat went down that night — the boat went down 

that night . 
* The First Quarrel . " Tennyson. 



40 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

" The foe came on, and few remain 
To strive, and those must strive in vain : 
To the high altar, on they go, 
And round the sacred table glow- 
Twelve lofty lamps, in splendid row, 
From the purest metal cast ; 
A spoil — the richest, and the last, 
So near they came, the nearest stretched 
To grasp the spoil, he almost reached, — 
When old Minott's hand 
Touch'd with the torch the train — 
'Tis fired ! 

Spire, vaults, the shrine, the spoil, the slain, 
The turban'd victors, the Christian band, 
All that of living or dead remain, 
Hurled on high with the shiver'd fane 
In one wild roar expired ! " 

A SURPRISING DISCOVERY. 

Marner closed his door, unaware of any intermediate 
change, except that the light had grown dim, and that he 
was chilled and faint . Turning toward the hearth where 
the two logs had fallen apart, and sent forth only a red, 
uncertain glimmer, he seated himself on his fireside chair 
and was stooping to push his logs together, when to his 
blurred vision, it seemed as if there was gold in front of 
his hearth ! Gold ! his own gold — brought back as mys- 
teriously as it had been taken away ! He felt his heart 
begin to beat violently, for a few moments he was unable 
to stretch forth his hand and grasp the restored treasure . 

The heap of gold seemed to glow and to get larger be- 
neath his agitated gaze . He leaned forward, at last and 
stretchehed forth his hand; but instead of the hard coin 
with the familiar outline, his fingers encountered soft warm 



SLIDES OF THE VOICE 41 

curls . In utter amazement Silas fell upon his knees and 
bent his head low to examine the marvel : it was a sleeping 
child — a round fair thing, with soft yellow rings all over 
its head. 

The wee boots had at last suggested to Silas that the 
child had been walking in the snow, and this roused him 
from his entire oblivion of any ordinary means by which 
it could have entered or been brought into his house . 
Under the promptings of this new idea, and without wait- 
ing to form conjectures, he raised the child in his arms, and 
went to the door . As soon as he had opened it, there was 
a cry of " mammy " again which Silas had not heard since 
the child's first hungry waking. Bending forward he 
could just discern the marks made by the little feet on the 
virgin snow, and he followed their tracks to the furze 
bushes . " Mammy ! " the little one cried again, stretch- 
ing itself forward so as almost to escape from Silas's arms, 
before he himself was aware, that there was something more, 
than the bush before him — that there was a human body 
with the head sunk low in the furze, and half covered with 
the shaken snow . 
" Silas Marner . " George Eliot . 

XXVII . Law of Slides . — In monotone the voice 
is carried along on a level, while in natural conver- 
sation, it is full of inflections, continually sliding up 
and down . These slides give life to speech and ren- 
der it expressive . The voice full of slides can give 
the finest shades of meaning, while the tone of strength 
and power approach the monotone and is less expres- 
sive . Slides lead the mind away from the general 

thought to the individual ideas. 

Note 1. — In song the voice passes from one key 



42 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

to another by distinct steps, called Discrete movement, but 
in speech Concrete movement is used . 

Note 2 . — The Monotone while generally a fault 
is properly used when great impressiveness is desired . 

SIGNIFICANCE OF LINES. 

Slides in the voice, movements of the arms in gesture, 
are governed in a general way, by the same principles as 
are found in the other arts . 

We find the Curved line is expressive of grace and beau- 
ty ; the Straight line, strength ; the Spiral, mystic, spiritual. 
The Straight line is physical in significance; the Curved 
line, mental ; the Spiral, emotive, spiritual, mystic . 
" Curved is the line of beauty; straight is the line of duty; 
Follow the Second, and you will see the First will ever 
follow thee f 

Following are outlines showing meaning of lines of 
Form, Sound, Motion in Nature and Art . 

STRAIGHT LINES EXPRESSIVE OF STRENGTH. 

Form. 

a . Nature . 
i. Rocky layers in the earth's crust 
ii . Towering peaks, bluffs, canyons, 
iii . Glaciers . 

b. Architecture, 
i . Pyramids • 

ii . Rocky caves of Egypt and Assyria . 
iii. Walls of ancient cities, 
iv . Massive modern buildings, places of commerce. 

Sound . 
i . Roar of thunder, and the roar of a storm . 
ii . Growl of angry animals . 
iii . Some martial music . 
iv . Orotund voice in monotone . 



LINES IN EXPRESSION 43 

Motion . 
i . The walk of a person who is decided, and has 

a determined, earnest purpose . 
ii , The course of a strong wind . 
iii. Lightning flash . 
iv . Heavy blows . 

CURVED LINES EXPRESSIVE OF GRACE AND BEAUTY. 

Form. 

Nature. 
i. Outlines of distant hills and mountains, 
ii . Winding streams . 
iii . Banks of clouds . 
iv. Endless variety in vegetable life, curve of 

branch, of leaf and flower. 
v. Animals, the horse, for example, has a variety 

of curves and complex lines of beauty, 
vi . The human body reaches highest perfection of 
grace, harmonic blending of lines of beauty. 
Architecture . 
i . Domes, arches, niches, endless combinations of 
ornamental carvings and devices . 
Sound . 
i. Rhythmic sounds in nature, 
ii u Songs of birds, rippling water . 
iii . Music of all kinds . 

iv . Slides and inflections of the human voice . 
v. Rhythm of speech. 

Motion . 
i . Motion o the waves . 
ii . Birds floating in the air . 
iii. Fishes swimming in the water, 
iv . Movements of some animals . 
v . Fields of waving grain . 



44 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

SPIRAL LINES ARE SYMBOLIC OP THE SPIRITUAL, MYSTICAL. 

Examples of the spiral line we find in the motion of 
flame ending in a vanish of smoke, which suggests the 
the spiritual, mystical, vanish. We find this idea illus- 
trated in the ancient worship, the prayers being offered 
up with the sacrifice . 

Slowly from out the west the yellow rays of 
Ripening sunshine die, hushed are the song and jest; 
And from the sacrifice by priestly hands 
Sweet, spicy incense, like a voiceless prayer, 
Floats upon perfumed wings, to Mercy's throne. 
Down cloudy pathway walks the coming night, 
Casting mysterious shadows in her way . 
" Rizpah . " Lucy Blinn . 

The flame and smoke in an open grate plays with the 
fancy and leads the mind into the realm of the mystic # 
In Art, Music, Architecture, and Life the upward curve 
is expressive of joy, gladness, exultation and kindred 
emotions : the downward lines manifest downcast, dejected 
feelings : sorrow, melancholy, and gloomy emotions . 

Let us sum up the matter by saying : the slides of the 
voice and the direction of the arms in gesture move in a 
straight, curved, or spiral line according to the sentiment # 
A study of the expression of lines may be found useful 
in many ways beside voice and gesture, music, architecture, 
and painting ; arrangement of the lines in dress, the placing 
of articles in a room may be made to suggest cheer or 
gloom or strength . All recognize the meaning of the lines 
in the expression of the face . We understand what is 
meant by the expression " down in the mouth . n The 
Psalmist often speaks of " horn exalted, or trumpet lifted up 
in rejoicing. " Straight out from the shoulder, " tells of 
energetic action. 



RISING SLIDES 45 

XXVIII. Law of Rising Slides* — Ascending slides 
are employed — 

1 . While the meaning is yet incomplete . 

Examples — 

" The horrid crags by toppling convent crown'd, 
The cork-tree's hoar that clothe the shaggy steep, 
The mountain moss by scorching skies embrown'd, 
The sunken glen whose sunless shrubs must weep, 
The tender azure of the unruffled deep, 
The orange tints that gild the greenest bough, 
The torrents that from cliff to valley leap, 
The vine on high, the willow-branch below, 
Mixed in one mighty scene with varied beauty glow ." 

2 . Throughout and at the end of negative 
clauses and sentences . 

" Not high raised battlements nor labored mound, 
Thick wall, or moated gate ; not cities proud, nor spires 
Nor turrets crowned, nor bays, nor broad arm'd ports; 
Not stars, nor spangled courts, — these do n ot form 
a state. " 

" Tis not enough — No ! 
Vengeance cannot take away the grace of life ; 
The comeliness of look that virtue gives, 
Its port erect with consciousness of truth, 
Its rich attire of honorable deeds, 
Its fair report that's rife on good men's tongues . 
It cannot lay its hands on these, no more 
Than it can pluck his brightness from the sun, 
Or with polluted finger tarnish it . " 

"Tell me not in mournful numbers. 
Life is but an empty dream !" 



46 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

3. At the end of a complete thought when 
immediately followed by another in similar strain . 

" Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, 
And all the air a solemn stillness holds; 
Save where the beetle wheels its drony flight, 
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds ; 
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower, 
The moping owl does to the moon complain 
Of such as wandering near her secret bower, 
Molest her ancient, solitary reign ." 

" He that is truly polite, knows how to contradict with 
respect, and to please without adulation ;and is equally re- 
mote from an insipid complaisance and a low familiarity * 

Every clod feels a stir of might, 
An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 
And, groping blindly above it for light, 
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers ; 
The flush of life may well be seen 
Thrilling back over hills and valleys; 
The cowslip startles in meadows green ; 
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, 
And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean 
To be some happy creature's palace; 
The little bird sits at his door in the sun, 
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 
And lets his illumined being o'errun 
With the deluge of summer it receives; 
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, 
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; 
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, — 
In the nice ear of nature which song is the best ? 
to Vision of Sir Launfal. " Lowell . 



RISING SLIDES 47 

4. In unemphatic questions answerable by yes 
or nOy and in inverted questions and clauses . 

" Think you a little din can daunt mine ears ? 
Have I not in my time heard lions roar? 
Have I not heard the sea puiFd up with winds, 
Eage like an angry bear ? 
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field ? 
And Heaven's artillery thunder in the sky? 
Have I not a pitched battle heard 
Loud alarms, neighing steeds and trumpets clang? 
And do you tell me of a woman's tongue? " 

" Of what use is fortune or talent to a cold or defective 
nature? Who cares what sensibility or discrimination a 
man has at some time shown, if he falls asleep in his chair ? 
or if he laugh and giggle ? or if he apologize ? or if he is 
affected with egotism? or thinks of his dollar? or cannot 
go by food ? Of what use is genius, if the organ is too 
convex or too concave, and cannot find a focal distance 
within the actual horizon of human life ? Of what use, if 
the brain is too cold or too hot, and the man does not care 
enough for results, to stimulate him to experiment, and hold 
him up in it? Or if the web is too finely woven, too irri- 
table by pleasure and pain, so that life stagnates from too 
much reception, without due outlet ? Of what use to make 
heroic vows of amendment, if the same old law-breaker is 
to keep them ? " 

" Oh, ever beautious ! ever friendly ! tell 
Is it in Heav'n a crime to love too well? 
To bear too tender, or too firm a heart, 
To act a Lover's or a Roman's part ? 
Is there no bright reversion in the sky, 
For those who greatly think or bravely die ? " 



48 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

5. In clauses expressing doubt or contingency . 

" If a cool, determined courage, that no apparently hope- 
less struggle could lessen or subdue — if a dauntless reso- 
lution, that shone the brightest in the midst of the greatest 
difficulties and dangers — if a heart ever open to the ten- 
derest affections of our nature and the purest pleasures of 
social intercourse — if an almost childlike simplicity of 
character, that while incapable of craft or dissimulation in 
itself, yet seemed to have an intuitive power of seeing and 
defeating the insidious designs and treacheries of others — 
if characteristics such as these constitute their possessor a 
hero, then I say, foremost in the rank of heroes shines the 
deathless name of Washington !" 

" If it be proved against an alien, 
That by direct or indirect attempts 
He seek the life of any citizen, 
The party 'gainst the which he doth contrive 
Shall seize on half his goods ." 

6. In some exclamatory utterances. 

" Oh beautiful ! Oh wonderful ! Oh divine ! 

A scale has fallen from my sight, 

A marvelous glory was called forth 

And shone upon the face of earth . 

I saw millions of spirits darting 

To and fro athwart the air — spirits 

That my magic had never yet discerned 

Spirits of rainbow hues and quivering 

With the joy that made their nature. 

Wherever I cast my gaze, life upon life 

Was visible, — every blade of grass 

Swarmed with myriads, invisible 

To the common eye, but all performing still, 



RISING SLIDES 49 

With mimic regularity, the varied courses 
Of the human race ; every grain of dust, 
Every drop of water, was a universe 
Mapped into a thousand tribes, and all 
Fulfilling the destinies of mortality, 
Love, Fear, Hope, Emulation, 
Avarice, Jealousy, War, Death . " 

Ye ice-falls ! ye that from the mountain's brow 
Adown enormous ravines slope amain, — 
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, 
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge ! 
Motionless torrents ! Silent cataracts ! 
Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven 
Beneath the keen full moon ? 
Who bade the sun 
Clothe you with rainbows? 
Who with living flowers 

Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet? 
God ! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, 
Answer ! and let the ice-plains echo, God ! 
And they too have a voice — yon piles of snow 
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God ! 
" Hymn to Mount Blanc . " Coleridge . 

"Oh! When the heart is full — when bitter thoughts 

Come crowding thickly up for utterance, 

And the poor words of common courtesy 

Are such a very mockery — how much 

The bursting heart may pour itself in prayer ! " 

" O, speak again bright angel ! for thou art 
As glorious to this night, being o'er my head 
As is a winged messenger of heaven ! 
O blessed, blessed night ! I am afeared, 
Being in night, all this is but a dream ! " 



50 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

7. In wonder and surprise y and in expressions 
of the genial emotions y such as joy y hope, love . 

" My gracious lord, 
I should report that which I saw, 
But know not how to do it : — 
As I did stand my watch upon the hill, 
The wood began to move — 
Let me endure your wrath if it be not so : 
Within these three miles you may see it coming — 
I say a moving grove ! " 

Norbert — Now ! 

Constance — Not now ! 

Norbert — Give me them again, those hands — 

Put them upon my forehead, how it throbs ! 
Press them before my eyes, the fire comes through ! 
You cruellest, you dearest in the world, 
Let me ! The Queen must grant what 'er I ask — 
How can I gain you and not ask the Queen ? 
There she stays waiting for me, here stand you ; 
Some time or other this was to be asked, 
Now is the one time — what I ask, I gain : 
Let me ask now, love ! 

Constance — Do, and ruin us! 

Norbert — Let it be now, Love! All my soul breaks 
forth. 
How I do love you ! Give my love its way ! 
A man can have but one life and but one death, 
One heaven, one hell . Let me fulfil my fate — 
Grant me my heaven now ! Let me know you mine, 
Prove you mine, write my name upon your brow, 
Hold you and have you, and then die away, 
If God please, with completion in my soul ! 
*' In Ji Balcony . " Robert Browning . 



RISING SLIDES 51 

Duke — My own sweet love ! O my dear peerless wife ! 
By the blue sky and all its crowding stars, 
I love you better — oh, far better than 
Woman was ever loved . There's not an hour 
Of day or dreaming night but I am with thee : 
There's not a w T ind but whispers of thy name, 
And not a flower that sleeps beneath the moon 
But in its hues, or fragrance tells a tale 
Of thee, my love, to thy Mirandola. 
Speak, dearest Isidora, can you love 
As I do? Can — But no, no ; I shall grow 
Foolish if thus I talk • You must be gone ; 
You must be gone, fair Isidora, else 
The business of the dukedom soon will cease . 
I speak the truth, by Dian ! even now 
Gheraldi waits without ( or should ) to see me. 
In faith, you must go *. one kiss ; and so, away . 

Isidora — Farewell, my lord. 

Duke — Farewell . — With what a waving air she goes 
Along the corridor. How like a fawn; 
Yet statelier . — Hark ! no sound, however soft — 
Nor gentlest echo — telleth when she treads; 
But every motion of her shape doth seem 
Hallowed by silence . Thus did Hebe grow 
Amidst the gods, a paragon; and thus — 
Away ! I'm grown the very fool of love . 
« Mirandolo. " B.W. Proctor 

" O Jessica ! Jessica ! Jessica ! And to this day the 
sight of peach blossoms in the spring— the rustle of au- 
tumn leaves under my feet ! Can you recall the lines of 
Malory? 'Men and women could love together seven years, 
and then were love truth and faithfulness. ' How many 
more than seven have I loved you ! — you who never gave 
me any thing but friendship . " 



52 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

" For I know that my Eedeemer liveth, and that he 
shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though 
after my skin the worms shall destroy this body, yet in my 
flesh shall I see God : whom I shall see for myself, and 
mine eyes shall behold, and not another. " 

8. In salutation and pleading. 

" O king, live forever ! " 

Duke — And here I take it is the doctor come . 

Give me your hand. Come you from old Bellario? 
Portia — I did my lord • 
Duke — You are welcome . Take your place . 

Cassius — Good morrow, Brutus; do we trouble you? 

Adam — What, my young master ! O my gentle master ! 
O my sweet master ! O you memory 
Of old Sir Rowland! why, what make you here? 

Too hard to bear! why did they take me thence? 
O God Almighty, blessed Savior, Thou 
That didst uphold me on my lonely isle, 
Uphold me, Father, in my loneliness 
A little longer ! aid me, give me strength 
Not to tell her, never to let her know . 
Help me not to break in upon her peace . 
My children too ! must I not speak to these? 
They know me not . I should betray myself . 
Never; no father's kiss for me — the girl 
So like her mother, and the boy, my son . 
,c Enoch Jlrden." Tennyson. 

" Is it not more than midnight now ? Have mercy ; 
Oh do not grasp me with such violence. 
Oh spare me, sure I have not injured thee ? 
Let me not weep and pray to thee in vain ! * 



FALLING SLIDES 53 

XXIX. Law of Falling Slides— It has been said 
that ascending slides serve to hold the subject up to 
view, while the descending slides are used to lay down 
the completed thought . 

1 . When the meaning is complete . 

Examples — 

The world is too much with us ; late and soon, 
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers ; 
Little we see in nature that is ours ; 
We give our hearts away, a sordid boon ! 
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon ; 
The winds that will be howling at all hours, 
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers ; 
For this and for everything we are out of tune; 
It moves us not. — Great God ! I'd rather be 
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn ; 
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; 
Have sights of Proteus rising from the sea ; 
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn . 

Wordsworth . 

There is sweet music here that softer falls 
Than petals from blown roses on the grass, 
Or night-dews on still waters between walls 
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass; 
Music that gentler on the spirit lies, 
Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes ; 
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful 

skies . 
Here are cool mosses deep, 
And thro' the moss the ivies creep, 



54 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep, 
And from the cragg) r ledge the poppy hangs in sleep . 

How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream, 

With half -shut eyes ever to seem 

Falling asleep in a half-dream ! 

To dream and dream, like yonder amber light, 

Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height ; 

To hear each other's whisper'd speech; 

Eating the lotos day by day, 

To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, 

And tender curving lines of creamy spray; 

To lend our hearts and spirits wholly 

To the influences of mild-minded melancholy ; 

To muse and brood and live again in memory, 

With those old faces of our infancy 

Heap'd over with a mound of grass, 

Two handf uls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass ! 

But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly 

How sweet (while warm airs lull us blowing lovvly ) 

With half-dropt eyelids, still, 

Beneath a heaven dark and holy, 

To watch the long, bright river drawing slowly 

His waters from the purple hill — 

To hear the dewy echoes calling 

From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine — 

To watch the emerald-colour'd water falling 

Thro* many a wov'n acanthus- wreath divine ! 

Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine, 

Only to hear were sweet, stretched out beneath the pine. 

The Lotos blooms below the barren peak : 

The Lotos blows by every winding creek : 

All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone; 

Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone, 



FALLING SLIDES 55 

Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos- 
dust is blown . 
We have had enough of action, and of motion, we, 
Roll'd to starboard, roird to larboard, when the surge 

was seething free, 
When the wallowing monster spouted his foam-foun- 
tains in the sea . 
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, 
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined 
On the hills like gods together, careless of mankind . 

*v» *!* 5fC >ji >j^ 5fC 

Surely, surely slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore 
Than labor in the deep mid- ocean, wind and wave 

and oar; 
Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more . 
The Song of the Lotos -Eaters." Tennyson. 

" Now came still evening on, and twilight grey 
Had in her sober HVry all things clad . 
Silence accompanied : for beast and bird, 
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests, 
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale : 
She all night long, her am'rous descant sung. 
Silence was pleas'd . Now glowed the firmament 
With living sapphires : Hesperus, that lead 
The starry host, rode brightest; till the moon, 
Rising in clouded majesty, at length 
Apparent queen, unveil'd her peerless light, 
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw . " 

" Give thy thoughts no tongue, 
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act. 
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar . 
The friends thou hast and their adoption tried, 
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel." 



56 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

2. To separate individual clauses, independent 

in meaning. 

" Man is his own star ; and the soul that can 
Render an honest and a perfect man, 
Commands all light, all influence, all fate ; 
Nothing to him falls early or too late . 
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, 
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still. * 
" Man is higher than his dwelling -place : he looks up 
and unfolds the wings of his soul, and when the sixty min- 
utes which we call sixty years, have passed, he takes flight, 
kindling as he rises, and the ashes of his feathers fall back 
to earth, and the unveiled soul, freed from its covering of 
clay, and pure as a tone, ascends on high . Even in the 
midst of the dim shadows of life, he sees the mountains of 
a future world gilded with the morning rays of a sun which 
rises not here below . " 

" Bless the Lord, O my soul ! O Lord, my God, thou 
art very great; thou art clothed with honor and majesty; 
who coverest thyself with light as with a garment ; who 
stretchest out the heavens like a curtain ; who layeth the 
beams of his chambers in the waters ; who maketh the 
clouds His chariot; who walketh upon the wings of the 
wind ; who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should 
not be removed forever . * 

" Thou breath est, — and the obedient storm is still; 

Thou speakest, — silent the submissive wave ; 
Man's scattered ship the rushing waters fill, 

And the hushed billows roll across his grave . 
Sourceless and endless God ! compared with Thee, 

Life is a shadowy, momentary dream, 
And time when viewed through Thy eternity 

Less than the mote of morning's golden beam , " 



FALLING SLIDES 57 

3. Questions not answered by yes orno. 

" But tell why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death, 
Have burst their cerements ; Why the sepulchre, 
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd 
Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws, 
To cast thee up again . What may this mean, 
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel 
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon, 
Making night hideous ; and we fools of nature 
So horridly to shake our disposition 
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls ? 
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do? " 

" Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and 
life unto the bitter in soul, which long for death, but it 
cometh not ; and dig for it more than for hid treasure ; which 
rejoice exceedingly and are glad, when they can find a 
grave ? Why is light given to a man whose way is hid ? 
and whom God hath hedged in ? " 

" How long did he pause upon the brink of the Rubicon? 
How came he to the brink of that river ? How dared he 
cross it? Shall private men respect the boundaries of pri- 
vate property, and shall a man pay no respect to the boun- 
daries of his country's rights? How dared he cross that 
river? Oh ! but he paused upon the brink. He should 
have perished upon the brink ere he had crossed it ! Why 
did he pause? Why does a man's heart palpitate when he 
is on the point of committing an unlawful deed ? Why 
does the very murderer, his victim sleeping before him, 
and his glaring eye taking the measure of the blow, strike 
wide of the mortal part? Because of conscience ! 'Twas 
that that made Csesar pause upon the brink of the Rubicon. 
Compassion ! What compassion ? The compassion of an 
assassin. " 



58 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

4. Often in questions answerable by yes or no . 

" Then Satan answered the Lord and said — i Doth Job 
fear God for nought? Hast thou not made an hedge 
about him, and about his house, and all he hath on every 
side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his 
substance is increased in the land. Put forth thy hand 
now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee 
to thy face .' " 

" What patriotic purpose is to be accomplished by this 
expurging resolution ? Can you make that not to be which 
has been? Can you eradicate from memory and from 
history the fact that in March, 1843, a majority of the 
Senate of the United States passed the resolution which 
excites your enmity? Is it your vain and wicked object 
to arrogate to yourselves that power of annihilating the 
past that has been denied to Omnipotence itself? Do 
you intend to thrust your hands into our hearts and 
pick out the deep rooted convictions that are there? Or is 
your design merely to stigmatize us? You cannot stigma- 
tize us. Ne'er yet did base dishonor blur our name. " 

5. Throughout emphatic affirmation. 

€i Fear thou not, for I am with thee ; be not dismayed; 
for I am thy God; I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help 
thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my 
righteousness. Behold all that were incensed against thee 
shall be ashamed and confounded ; they shall be as noth- 
ing; and they that strive with thee shall perish. Thou 
shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, even them that 
contend with thee ; they that war against thee shall be 
as nothing and as a thing of naught. For I, the Lord 
thy God will hold thy right hand saying unto thee 
1 I will help thee • ' " 



FALLING SLIDES 59 

Queen Katharine— Sir, I desire you do me right and 
justice ; 
And to bestow your pity on me. Heaven witness, 
I have been to you a true and humble wife, 
At all times to your will conformable . If in the course 
And process of this time, you can report, 
And prove it too against mine honor aught, 
My bond to wedlock, or my love and duty, 
Against your sacred person, in God's name 
Turn me away . 

"Hear what Highland Nora said : 
i The Earlie's son I will not wed, 
Should all the race of nature die, 
And none be left but he and I . 
For all the gold, for all the gear, 
And all the lands both far and near, 
That ever valor lost or won, 
I would not wed the Earlie's son . ' " 

" Ham asked him whither he was going . 

' I am going to seek my niece . I am going to seek my 
Em'ly . I am going, first, to stave in that theer boat as 
he gave ine, and sink it where I would have drownded 
Aim, as I'm a livin* soul, if I had one thought of what was 
in him ! No one stop me ! I tell you I'm a going to seek 
my niece ! Pm a going to seek her fur and wide ! ' " 

" I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond . 

I'll have my bond; I will not hear thee speak, 

I'll have my bond ; and therefore speak no more, 

I'll not be made a soft and dull-eyed fool, 

To shake the head, relent, and sigh and yield 

To Christian intercessors . Follow not ; 

I'll have no speaking — I will have my bond ! * 



60 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

6. Throughout language of authority. 

" Depart ! Depart, O child 

Of Israel, from the temple of thy God, 

For he has smote thee with his chastening rod, 

And to the desert wild, 
From all thou lov'st, away thy feet must flee, 
That from thy plague his people may be free . " 

* The Angel answered, with unruffled brow, 

1 Nay, not the King, but the King's Jester, thou 

Henceforth shall wear the bells and scalloped cape, 
And for thy counsellor shalt lead an ape ; 

Thou shalt obey my servants when they call, 

And wait upon my henchmen in the hall I ' " 

" You will not, boy ! you dare not answer thus ! 
But in my time a father's word was law, 
And so it shall be now for me. Look to it; 
Consider, William : take a month to think, 
And let me have an answer to my wish; 
Or by the Lord that made me, you shall pack, 
And nevermore darken my doors again . " 

" The unknown rider reins his steed back on his 
haunches, right in the path of these broad-shouldered 
militia-men . * Now, cowards, advance another step and 
I'll strike you to the heart! What ! are you Americans, 
men, and fly before British soldiers ? Back again, and 
face them once more, or I myself will ride you down ! ' " 

" She murmured a psalm from her Bible ; but 
closer the young girl pressed, 

With the last of her life in her fingers, 
the cross to her breast. 

4 My son, come away, ' cried the mother, 
her voice cruel grown. 



FALLING SLIDES 61 

1 She is joined to her idols, like Ephraim ; 
let her alone ! ' " 

7. In utterance of gloomy emotions ', complaint ! . 

O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chas- 
ten me in thy hot displeasure . Have mercy upon me, 
O Lord, for I am weak ; O Lord, heal me for my bones are 
vexed. My soul is also sore vexed; but thou, O Lord, how 
long ? Keturn, O Lord, deliver my soul : Oh save me for 
thy mercies' sake . I am weary with my groaning ; all 
night make I my bed to swim . I water my couch with 
my tears. Mine eye is consumed because of my grief ; 
It waxeth old because of all mine enemies. 

Psalms VL 

Awful is the duel between Man and the Age in which 
he lives ! For the gain of posterity this inventor, Adam 
Warner, had martyrized existence — and the children had 
pelted him as he passed along the streets ! 

Again he paced restlessly to and fro the narrow floor of 
his room. At last he approached the Model — the model 
of a mighty and stupendous invention ; the fruit of no 
chimerical and visionary science — a great Promethean 
Thing, that, once matured, would divide the Old World 
from the New, enter into all operations of Labor, animate 
all future affairs, color all the practical doctrines, of active 
men . He paused before it and addressed it as if it heard 
and understood him : " My hair was dark, and my tread 
was firm, when one night, a Thought passed into my soul — 
a thought to make Matter the gigantic slave of Mind. 
Out of this thought, thou, not yet born after five-and-twen- 
ty years of travail, wert conceived . My coffers were then 
full, and my name honored; and the rich respected me 
and the poor loved me . Art thou a devil that has tempted 



62 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

me to ruin ; or a god that has lifted me above the earth ? 
1 am old before my time — my hair is blanched, my frame 
is bowed, my wealth is gone, my name is sullied . And aU 
dumb Idol of Iron and the Element, all for thee ! I had 
a wife whom I adored — she died; I forgot her loss in the 
hope of thy life. I have a child still — God forgive me — 
she is less dear to me than thou hast been . And now — " 
the old man ceased abruptly, and folding his arms, looked 
at the deaf iron sternly, as on a human foe . By his side 
was a huge hammer, employed in the toils of his forge ; 
suddenly he seized and swung it aloft. One blow and the 
labor of years was shattered into pieces! One blow! — 
but his heart failed him, and : the hammer fell heavily to the 
ground . "Ay! " he muttered, " true — true ; if thou 
who hast destroyed all else, wert destroyed too, what were 
left me ? Is it a crime to murder Man ? — a greater crime 
to murder Thought, which is the life of all men . Come — 
I forgive thee ! " 

And all that day, and all that night the Enthusiast 
labored in his chamber, and the next day the remembrance 
of the hootings, the peltings, the mob, was gone — clean 
gone from his breast. The Model began to move — life 
hovered over its wheels, and the Martyr of Science had 
forgotten the very world for which he, groaning and 
rejoicing, toiled. 

"The Despondent Inventor." E. Bulwer Lytton. 

" Leaves have their time to fall 

And flowers to wither at the north wind's breath, 
And stars to set ; — but all 

Thou hast all seasons for thine own , O Death ! 
We. know when moons shall wane, 

When summer birds from far shall cross the sea, 
When autumn's hue shall tinge the golden grain ; 

But who shall teach us when to look for thee ? " 



FALLING SLIDES 63 

8. The baser passions . 

Ceiici — My friends, I do lament this insane girl 
Has spoilt the mirth of our festivity . 
Good night, farewell; I will not make you longer 
Spectators of our domestic quarrels . 
Another time. — 

( Exeunt all but Cenci and Beatrice ) 
My brain is swimming round : 
Give me a bowl of wine. 

( To Beatrice ) Thou painted viper ! 
Beast that thou art ! Fair and yet terrible ! 
I know a charm shall make thee meek and tame • 

( Exit Beatrice ) 

Here, Andrea, 
Fill up this goblet with Greek wine . I said 
I would not drink this evening, but I must ; 
For strange to say, I feel my spirits fail 
With thinking what I have decreed to do . 
Be thou the resolution of quick youth 
Within my veins, and manhood's, purpose stern 
And age's firm, cold, subtle villany; 
As if thou wert indeed my children's blood 
Which I did thirst to drink — The charm works well; 
It must be done, it shall be done, 1 swear. 
" The Cenci . " Shelley. 

* What ! you have brought your bride a wreath ? 

You sly old fox with wrinkled face* — 

That blade has blood between your teeth. 

Lie still, lie still ! till I lean o'er 

And clutch your red blade to the shore., 

Ha ! ha ! take that, and that, and that ! 

Ha ! ha ! So through your coward throat 

The full day shines!" 



64 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

Then John Alden spake, and related the wondrous 
adventure, 
From beginning to end, minutely n just as it happened; 
How he had seen Priscilla, and how he had sped in his 

courtship, 
Only smoothing a little, and softening down her refusal . 
But when he came at length to the words Priscilla had 

spoken, 
Words so tender and cruel : " Why don't you speak for 

yourself, John ? " 
Up leaped the Captain of Plymouth, and stamped on the 

floor till his armor 
Clang'd on the wall, where it hung, with a sound of 

sinister omen. 
Wildly he shouted, and loud : " John Alden ! you have 

betrayed me! 
Me, Miles Standish, your friend ! have supplanted, defraud- 
ed, betrayed me ! 
One of my ancestors ran his sword through the heart of 

Wat Tyler; 
Yours is the greater treason, for yours is a treason to 

friendship ! 
You, who lived under my roof, whom I cherished and 

loved as a brother : 
You, who have fed at my board, and drunk at my cup, 

to whose keeping 
I have intrusted my honor, my thoughts the most sacred 

and secret — 
You too, Brutus ! ah woe to the name of friendship hereafter ! 
Brutus was Caesar's friend, and you were mine, but hence- 
forward 
Let there be nothing between us save war, and implacable 

hatred ! 
" The Courtship of Miles Standish,." Longfellow . 



FALLING SLIDES 65 

9 The falling slides are used on important 
words to give life and vividness to description . 

Everybody knows, in our part of the world at least, 
how pleasant and soft the fall of the land is round about 
Plover's Barrows farm . All above it is strong dark moun- 
tain, spread with heath, and desolate ; but nearer our house 
the valleys cove, and open warmth and shelter . Here are 
trees, and bright green grass, and orchards full of content- 
ment ; and a man may scarce espy the brook, although he 
hears it everywhere. And indeed a stout good piece of it 
comes through our farmyard, and swells sometimes to a 
rush of waves, when the clpuds are on the Billtops . But 
all below where the valley bends, and the Lynn stream 
goes along with it, pretty meadows slope their breast, and 
the sun spreads on the water . 

To awake as the summer sun came slanting over the 
hilltops, with hope on every beam adance to the laughter 
of the morning; to see the leaves across the window ruffling 
on the fresh new air, and the tendrils of the powdery vine 
turning from their beaded sleep . Then the lustrous mead- 
ows far beyond the thatch of the garden wall, yet seen 
beneath the hanging scallops of the walnut tree, all awak- 
ening, dressed in pearl, all amazed at their own glistening, 
like a maid at her own ideas . 
" Lama Doone. " Blackmore. 

" The castled crag of Drachenfels 
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine, 
Whose breast of waters broadly swells 
Between the banks that bear the vine, 
And hills all rich with blossomed trees, 
And fields which promise corn and wine, 
And scattered cities crowning these, 
Whose far white walls along them shine. * 



66 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

XXX. Law of Circumflex . — Rising and Falling 
Slides, while diametrically opposed in significance ', are 
sometimes united in a single word, having a mixed 
or double meaning, the more important idea prevailing, 
ending and naming the Circumflex, thus ; Rising and 
Falling. The Circumflex, like other inflections, as to 
their use may be classified as 

1 . Those which serve a purpose in a logical 
sense, where the meaning is either implied or expressed. 

2 . Used to manifest emotion. 

When any wotd is introduced which suggests an an- 
tithesis without openly expressing it, it should have a 
circumflex. An affirmative or positive clause takes a 
falling wave. A negative or doubtful clause takes 
a rising circumflex on the word suggesting the antithesis* 

Examples of affirmative or positive clauses — 

" Swear priests and cowards, and men cautelous, 
Old feeble carrions and such suffering souls 
That welcome wrongs : unto bad causes swear 
Such creatures as men doubt ; but do not stain 
The even virtue of our enterprise, 
Nor the insuppressive mettle of our spirits, 
To think that or our cause or our performance 
Did need an oath . " 

" You say you are a better soldier ; 
Let it appear so : make your vaunting true 
And it shall please me well . For mine own part 
I shall be glad to learn of noble men . " 

Examples of negative and doubtful expressions — 



CIRCUMFLEX 67 

But it is doubtful yet, 
Whether Csesar will come forth, to-day, or no ; 
For he is superstitious grown of late, 
Quite from the main opinion he held once 
Of fantasy, of dreams and ceremonies '• 
It may be, these apparent prodigies, 
The unaccustom'd terror of this night, 
And the persuasion of his augurers, 
May hold him from the Capitol to-day . 
" Julius Ccesar. " Shakespeare . 

" Justice is not a halt and miserable object ; it is not the 
ineffective bauble of an Indian Pagod; it is not the porten- 
tous phantom of despair; it is not like nay fabled monster 
formed in the eclipse of reason and found in some unhal- 
lowed grove of superstitious darkness and political dismay . 
No, my Lords, Justice resembles none of these ! " 

When words are antithical in meaning, and emphatic, 
the falling circumflex should be used on the positive and 
the rising on the negative. 

Examples — 

" We live in deeds, not years, — in thoughts, not breath ; 
in feelings, not in figures on a dial . We should count 
time by heartthrobs. He most lives, who thinks the 
most, — feels the noblest, — acts the best . " 

" Look, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it 

To lie that way thou go'st, not whence thou com'st ; 

Suppose the singing birds, musicians, 

The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence streVd, 

The flowers, fair ladies, and thy steps, no more 

Than a delightful measure or a dance ; 

For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite 

The man that mocks at it and sets it light. " 



68 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

The Circumflex is used in expressions having a double 
meaning, where the words say one thing while the slides of 
the voice give an opposite meaning . 

The Circumflex is also employed in emotions of Sur» 
prise, Scorn, Contempt, Reproach. 

Strong, emphatic emotions and passions such as great 
contempt, reproach, withering sarcasm, irony, mockery 
require a double Circumflex called the Wave . 

Examples of Emotions with Circumflex and Wave — 
surprise . 

" He knows me, " said Scrooge, with his hand already 
on the dining-room lock. " I'll go in here, my dear." 

" Why, bless my soul! " cried Fred, " who's that? " 

" It's I . Your uncle Scrooge . I have come to dinner • 
Will you let me in, Fred? * 

Let him in ! It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off # 
He was at home in five minutes. His niece looked just 
the same. So did Topper when he came. So did the 
plump sister when she came. So did every one when they 
came. Wonderful party, wonderful games, won-der-ful 
happ iness . 
" A Christmas Carol . " Dickens . 

Schneider! Schneider! What's the matter with 
Schneider? Something must have scared that dog . 

Well, I — no — Schneider ! No ; whatever it is, it's on 
two legs . Why, what a funny thing is that a coming up 
the hill? I thought nobody but me ever came nigh this 
place. What? What's the matter ? Ain't ye goin' to 
speak to a feller? I don't want to speak to you, then. 
Who you think you was, that I want to speak to you, 
any more than you want to speak to me ; you hear what 
1 say ? He must be an old sea-snake, I reckon . 
<' Rip Van Winkle. " Joseph Jefferson* 



DOUBLE WAVE 69 



SCORN , 



And the Philistine said unto David, * Am I a dog, that 
thou comest unto me with stones ? " And the Philistine 
cursed David by his gods. " Come to me and I will give 
thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the 
field. Then said David to the Philistine, "Thou comest to 
me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield ; but 
I come to thee in the name of the God of the armies of 
Israel whom thou hast defiled. This day will the Lord 
deliver thee into mine hand ; and I will smite thee, and 
take thy head from thee, and 1 will give the carcases of 
the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the 
air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth 
may know there is a God in Israel . v 

1 Samuel VII. 

Do you think to frighten me ? you ! by reminding me 
of the solitude of this place, and there being no help 
near ? Me, who am here alone designedly ? If I feared 
you 'should I not have avoided you? If I feared you, 
should I be here, in the dead of night, telling you to your 
face what I am going to tell ? I have something lying 
here that is no love trinket ; and sooner than endure your 
touch once more, I would use it on you — and you kno w 
it, while I speak — with less reluctance than I would on 
any other creeping thing that lives . We are face to face 
for the last time . Wretch ! we meet to-night, and part to- 
night . For not one moment after I have ceased to speak 
will I stay here ! See these ! You have addressed these 
to me in the false name you go by . The seals are unbro- 
ken. Take them back ! I single out in you the meanest 
man I know . You know how you came here to-night 

Lastly, take my warning ! You have been betrayed , 
Edith Dvmbey, " Dombey and Son. " Dtckens* 



70 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

CONTEMPT . 

King — Where is Polonius? 

Hamlet — In heaven: send thither to see: if your 
messenger find him not there, seek him i* the other place 
yourself. But indeed, if you find him not within this 
month, you shall nose him as you go by the stairs into 
the lobby. 

Bassanto — If it please you dine with us . 

Shyhclc — Yes, to smell pork ; to eat of the habitation 
which your prophet the Nazarite conjured the Devil into . 
I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk 
with you, and so following, but I will not eat with you, 
drink with you, nor pray with you. 

REPROACH , 

Queen — O, what a rash and bloody deed is this! 
Hamlet — A bloody deed ! almost as bad, good mother, 
as kill a king, and marry with his brother . 

u And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their 
heads, and saying ' Thou that destroyest the temple, and 
buildest it in three days, save thyself . If thou be the 
Son of God, come down from the cross . p * 

irony . 

Cry aloud; for he is a god; either he is talking, or he 
is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he 
sleepeth, and must be awakened . 

" But you are very wise men, and deeply learned in the 
truth; we are weak, contemptible, mean persons. * 

" Thy integrity got thee absolved ; thy modesty drew 
thee out of danger; and the innocency of thy past life 



EMPHATIC SLIDES 71 

saved thee ; for you meant no harm : oh, no : your thoughts 
are innocent; you have nothing to hide; your breast is 
pure, stainless, all truth . " 

And Job answered and said, 

" No doubt but ye are the people^ 

And wisdom shall die with you. 

But I have understanding as well as you, 

I am not inferior to you ; yea, who 

Knoweth not such things as these t " 

Job XII. 1-4. 

MOCKERY, 

* Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans mark 
him, and write his speeches in their books, alas, it cried, 
1 Give me some drink, Titinius, ' like a sick girl. " 

° You come to me, and you say, 
* Shylock, we would have moneys : ' you say so ! 

What should I say to you? Should I not say 
' Hath a dog money? is it possible 
A cur can lend three thousand ducats? ' Or 
Say this : 
i Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last; 
You spurn'd me such a day; another time 
You call'd me dog; and for these courtesies 
Til lend you thus much moneys? ' " 
Deaf to King Robert's threats and cries and prayers, 
They thrust him from the hall and down the stairs ; 
A group of tittering pages ran before, 
And as they opened wide the folding-door, 
His heart failed, for he heard, with strange alarms, 
The boisterous laughter of the men-at-arms, 
And all the vaulted chamber roar and ring 
With the mock plaudits of " Long live the King ! " 
H King Robert of Sicily. " hong f ellow. 



72, SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

XXXI. Law of Conversational Slides. — In ordina- 
ry utterance y conversational slides at e used, which pass 
through one interval of the scale . In strong assertions, 
doubting or surprised interrogation and emotional Ian- 
guage y the slides become emphatic and occasionally 
cover a whole octave. 

Examples of Conversational Slides — 

Of course it became a serious duty now, to make such 
a day of it, as should mark these events for a high Feast 
and Festival in the Perrybingle Calendar for evermore . 
Accordingly, Dot went to work to produce such an enter- 
tainment, as should reflect undying honor on the house 
and on every one concerned ; and in a very short space of 
time she was up to her dimpled elbows in flour, and whiten- 
ing the Carrier's coat, every time he came near her by 
stopping him to give him a kiss . That good fellow washed 
the greens, and peeled the turnips, and broke the plates 
and upset iron pots full of cold water on the fire, and made 
himself useful in all sorts of ways : while a couple of assist- 
ants, hastily called in from somewhere in the neighborhood, 
as on a point of life or death, ran against each other in 
all the doorways and round all the corners, and every- 
bod y tumbled over Tilly Slo wboy and the baby, everywhere . 
I wouldn't have missed Dot, doing the honors 
in her wedding-gown, nor the good Carrier so jovial at the 
bottom of the table- Nor the brown, fresh sailor-fellow 
and his handsome wife. Nor anyone among them. To 
have missed the dinner would have been to miss as jolly 
and as stout a meal as man need eat ; and to have missed 
the overflowing cups in which thy drank The Wedding- 
Day, would have been the greatest miss of all. 
•< The Cricket On The Hearth . " Dklcens 



CADENCE 73 

XXXII. Law of Cadence . — Closing syllables of a 
sentence should be produced in a manner agreeable to 
the ear, avoiding similarity in the ending of successive 
sentences . 

Note 1 . — Cadence may occur upon one, two or 
three syllables or notes, and the forms are called respec- 
tively monad, duad and triad . 

Note 2. — The closing of any reading or address 
should be so marked by inflections as to suggest the finish ; 
a stepping down and out with a graceful leave taking. 

" Cadence is the rhythmical modulation of the voice 
as in reading verse . " " The conclusion of a strain or of 
a musical period or passage; the principal point of rest in 
an harmonic progression : — An embellishment at the end 
of a piece . " 

The student will find the natural cadences under the 
guidance of the thought and feeling in the following 
Examples — 
" Well, then, Hi tell you what I'll do with you . I'll heap 
'em all on the footboard of the cart, — there they are ! 
razors, flat-iron, fryingpan, chronometer watch, dinner- 
plates, rolling-pin, and looking-glass, — take 'em all away 
for four shillings, and I'll give you sixpence for your 
trouble!" 

" O comrades ! warriors ! Thracians ! — if we must fight, 
let us fight, for ourselves! If we must slaughter, let us 
slaughter our oppressors ! If we must die, let it be under 
the clear sky, by the bright waters in noble, honorable, 
battle!" 

'• Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever ; 
Do noble things, not dream them, all day long; 
And so make life, death, and that vast forever, 
One grand, sweet song . " 



74 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

XZXIII, Law of Force. — Force is strength of 
tone J it should not be uniform through utterance but 
varying with the constantly changing sentiments. 

The Elements of Force include Degree of Force, 
Form and Stress. 

XXXIV. Law of Heavy Force. — When the idea 
is that of strength or power, as in grandeur, firm re- 
solve, intensity of feeling, shouting, calling, defiance, 
anger and in all bold, noble, dignified, energetic, vehe- 
ment or in declamatory utterances, Heavy Force is 
demanded. 

Note.— The Law of Mental Grasp (XVII, Page 25) 
should be carefully observed in the use of Heavy Force . 
Loudness requires Vocal Force but Intensity of thought 
Dynamic Force . 

Examples of Heavy Force — 

" Behold the condemned Claudius, and Cynthia, whom 
he lately took for his wife . They are condemned to death 
for the great folly of Claudius, that the Roman people 
may know that Commodus reigns supreme . The crime for 
which they are to die is a great one . Claudius has public- 
ly proclaimed that he is a better archer than I, Commodus, 
am . I am the Emperor and the incomparable archer of 
Rome. Whoever disputes it dies and his wife dies with 
him . It is decreed . " 

The war, then, must go on . We must fight it through . 
And if the war must go on, why put off longer the Decla- 
ration of Independence? That measure will strengthen 
us . Read this Declaration at the head of the army ; every 
sword will be drawn from its scabbard and the solemn vow 



HEAVY FORCE 75 

uttered to maintain it or perish on the bed of honor. Pub- 
lish it from the pulpit ; religion will approve it, and the 
love of religious liberty will cling round it, resolve to stand 
with it, or fall with it . Send it to the public halls, pro- 
claim it there* let them hear it who first heard the roar 
of the enemy's cannon; let them see it w T ho saw their 
brothers and sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill, and in 
the streets of Lexington and Concord, — and the very 
walls will cry out in its support . 
" Supposed Speech of John Adams . " Webster . 

The voice of the Lord is upon the waters ; the Lord of 
glory thundereth : the Lord is upon many waters . The 
voice of the Lord is powerful ; the voice of the Lord is 
full of majesty . The voice of the Lord breaketh the ce- 
dars; yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. He 
maketh them also to skip like a calf ; Lebanon and Sirion 
like a young unicorn . The voice of the Lord divideth 
flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilder- 
ness. The Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh . The 
voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve, and disco v- 
ereth the forests : and in his temple doth every one speak 
of his glory . The Lord sitteth upon the flood ; yea, the 
Lord sitteth King forever . 
Description of a Thunder-Storm. Psalms XXIX . 

Oh ! woe to you, ye gardens in the tender light of May ! 
Look on these ghastly features, this senseless, breathless clay. 
Look, and, beholding, wither ; strike all your fountains 
dumb, lie desolate and barren through all the years, to 
come ! Woe, woe to thee, assassin !thou curse of minstrelsy ! 
Vain, vain shall all thy striving for bloody glory be, thy 
name shall be forgotten, lost in eternal doom, as dies the 
last death-rattle, breathed into empty gloom ! 
" The Minstrels Curse* " Helen Herbert. 



76 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

XXXV. Law of Gentle Force. — In passages 
subdued, tender, grave and pathetic, in awe and rev- 
erence, in gentle melancholy and plaintive emotions, 
Gentle Force is required. 

Examples of Gentle Force — 
" Sleep, sleep — the south wind blows, 
Eocking the bee in the thornless rose, 
The baby birds have gone to bed, 
The drowsy blue-bell hangs its head ; 
Blue- bell and baby, bee and rose, 
Sleep, the south wind softly blows, 
The tide ebbs, the tide flows, 
Night comes, but night goes, 
Sleep! Sleep! " 

And then straightway before 
My tearless eyes, all vividly, was wrought 
A vision that is with me evermore ; 
A little girl that lies asleep, nor hears 
Nor heeds not any voice, or fall of tears — 
And I sit sighing o'er and o'er and o'er, — 
" God called her in from him and shut the dooor ! " 
" He Called Her In, » Riley. 

u Around this lovely valley rise 
The purple hills of Paradise . 
Oh, softly on yon banks of haze 
Her rosy face the summer lays ! 
Becalmed along the azure sky, 
The argosies of cloudland lie, 
Whose shores, with many a shining rift, 
Far off their pearl-white peaks uplift . " 

" I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep : for thou, 
Lord, only, makest me dwell in safety. " 



FORMS OF SPEECH 77 

XXXVI- Law of Form. — The Form of Force 
varies in speech, being Natural, Expulsive or Explosive . 

XXXVII . Law of Effusive . — Sentiment plaintive, 
pathetic, beautiful, solemn or reverential takes a gen- 
tie breathed Effusive Form. 

Examples of Effusive Form — 

"Farewell! " said he, "Minnehaha! 
Farewell, O my Laughing Water ! 
All my heart is buried with you, 
All my thoughts go onward with you ! 
Come not back again to labor, 
Come not back again to suffer, 
Where the Famine and the Fever 
Wear the heart and waste the body . 
Soon my task will be completed, 
Soon your footsteps I shall follow 
To the Islands of the Blessed, 
To the Kingdom of Ponemah, 
To the land of the Hereafter ! " 
" The Famine . " Longfellow 

Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth 
them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he re- 
membereth that we are dust . As for man, his days are as 
grass; as a flower of the field so he flourisheth; for the 
wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place there- 
of shall know it no more. 

Psalms CI1I, 13-16. 

" So hush, — I will give you this leaf to keep ; 
See, I shut it inside the sweet, cold hand ! 
There, that is our secret : go to sleep ! 
You will wake and remember, and understand. " 



78 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

XXXVIII . Law of Expulsive . — Forcible ', earnest, 
determined or impassioned language requires a vigor- 
ous Expulsive Form. 

Examples of Expulsive Form — 

" For 'tis you have blown this coal 'twixt my lord and 
me . 

" Let no one dare when I am dead to charge me with 
dishonor . " 

" Now by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen 
of France, 
Charge for the golden lilies, upon them with the lance . " 

XXXIX. Law of Explosive . — Vehement language, 
intense passion, startling passages of powerful descrip- 
tion employ an abrupt, explosive force . 

Examples of Explosive Form — 
" Ye gods ! ye gods ! must I endure all this? M 

" Up with your ladders ! Quick ! 'tis but a chance ! 
Behold, how fast the roaring flames advance! 
Quick ! quick ! brave spirits, to his rescue fly ; 
Up ! up ! by heavens, this hero must not die ! " 

tt I do not rise to waste the night in words; 

Let that Plebeian talk ; 'tis not my trade; 

But here I stand for right, — let him show proofs, — 

For Roman right ; though none, it seems, dare stand 

To take their share with me. Ay, cluster there/ 

Cling to your master, judges, Eomans, slaves ! 

His charge is false; I dare him to his proofs. " 

" ' Halt! 'the dust-brown rank stood fast. 
1 Fire ! ■ out blazed the rifle blast. " 



STRESS 79 

XL . Law of stress . — To words and parts ofwotds 
Force may be applied in six different ways, named, 
Initial, Final, Median, Compound, Thorough and 
Tremulous Stress . 

Note. — As the stress comes mainly on the accented 
vowel in the important word in any of the forms used, 
no attempt will be made here to indicate in the following 
examples the exact point of the stroke or stress . Atten- 
tion to the thought and fervor of feeling is a trustworthy 
guide, after a clear understanding of the use of the differ- 
ent forms of stress. A study of these forms of stress is to 
the student of Expression as a mastery of the graces in 
music to the Musician . Careful drill is the cost, to be 
able to use the proper stress skillfully . The thought and 
feeling will aid in giving to the expression its true ring. 

XLI. Law of Initial Stress. — To give energy 
and brilliancy to speech in all animated, energetic ex- 
pression the vowels should be struck with a sharp, per- 
cussive force, termed Initial Stress . 

" The guests were seated here and there 
On silken lounge and damask chair, 
And 'mid the din of laugh and song 
Soft words were whispered in the throng, 
And tender eyes a tale expressed, 
Which tongue had never yet confessed . " 

The thrush sings high on the topmost bough, — 
Low, louder, low again; and now 
He has changed his tree, — you know not how, 
For you saw no flutter of wing. 
* The Thrush. " gill. 



80 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

XLII. Law of Final Stress. — In passages man- 
ifesting intensity of fixedness of purpose, anger, ccn- 
tempt, stern rebuke and horror, the vowel sounds are 
more or less prolonged and Final Stress given in the 
form of Crescendo. 

Examples of Final Stress — 

For the love of them Judah forgot his quarrel . " Help 
theni, O my Messala ! Remember our childhood and help 
them. I — Judah — pray you. " Messala affected not to 
hear. " I cannot be of further use to you, " he said to 
the officer. " There is richer entertainment in the street. 
Down Eros, up Mars! "With the last words he disappeared . 

Judah understood him, and, in the bitterness of his 
soul, prayed to heaven. <' In the hour of thy vengeance, 
O Lord, be mine the hand to put it upon him ! " 
* Ben-Rur . " Lew Wallace . 

€t Ye gods, it doth amaze me ! 
A man of such a feeble temper should 
So get the start of the majestic world, 
And bear the palm alone . " 

Then out spake Miles Standish, the stalwart Captain of 
Plymouth . * What ! do you mean to make war with the 
milk and water of roses ? Is it to shoot red squirrels you 
have your howitzer planted there on the roof of the church, 
or is it to shoot red devils ? Truly the only tongue that is 
understood by a Savage must be the tongue of fire that 
speaks from the mouth of the cannon . Leave this matter 
to me for to me by right it pertaineth . War is a terrible 
trade ; but in the cause that is righteous sweet is the smell 
of powder; and thus I answer the challenge ! " Then from 
the rattle-snake's skin, with a sudden contemptuous gesture 



STRESS 81 

jerking the Indian arrows, he filled it with powder and bul- 
lets full to the very jaws, and handed it back to the savage, 
saying in thunderous tones, " Here, take it ! this is your 
answer ! " Longfellow . 

XLIII. Law of Median Stress . — In passages of 
sublimity, grandeur, great solemnity, awe, reverence or 
veneration, the voice should take a deep, rich quality 
with a swell mi the middle of the vowel, called Median 
Stress . 

Examples of Median Stress — 

(Voice of the people .) The Lord hear thee in the day 
of trouble, the name of the God of Jacob defend thee ; 
send thee help from the Sanctuary, and strengthen thee 
out of Zion ; remember all thy offerings, and accept thy 
burnt sacrifice ; grant thee according to thine own heart, 
and fulfil all thy counsel . 

( Voice of the army . ) We will rejoice in thy salvation 
and in the name of our God we will set up our banners ; 
the Lord fulfil all thy petitions . 

( Voice of the priest . ) Now know I that the Lord saveth 
his anointed ; he will hear him from his holy heaven with 
the saving strength of his right hand . 
( Voice of army with enemy visible. ) Some trust in 
chariots, and some in horses ; but we will remember the 
name of the Lord , our God . They are brought down 
and fallen ; but we are risen, and stand upright . Save 
Lord ; let the king hear us when we call . 
Battle Song. Psalms, XX, 

Toll ! Roland, toll ! Ring out across the sea ! 
No longer, they, but we, have now such need of thee ! 
Toll ! Roland, toll ! nor ever let thy throat 
Keep dumb its warning note till freedom's perils be outbraved? 



82 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

Floy, come close to me, and let me see you . 

How fast the river runs, between its green banks and 
the rushes, Floy ! but it's very near the sea now — I hear 
the waves ! they always said so ! " 

Presently he told her that the motion of the boat upon 
the stream was lulling him to rest . Who stood on the 
bank ? " Mamma is like you, Floy . I know her by the 
face . The light about the head is shining on me as I go . " 
The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and no- 
thing else stirred in the room . The old, old fashion ! The 
fashion that came in with our first garments, and will last 
unchanged until our race has run its course, and the wide 
firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The old, old fashion^ 
Death ! O, thank God, all who see it for that older fash- 
ion yet, of Immortality ! And look upon us Angels of 
young children with regards not quite estranged, when 
the swift river bears us to the sea . 
Little Dombey, from " Dombey and Son . " Dickens . 

XLIV. Law of Compound Stress . — In reproach, 
determination , intense surprise, contempt, withering 
scorn or violent interrogation, Compound Stress is used. 

Examples of Compound Stress — 

" Thou, my once lov'd, valu'd friend! 
By heaVn thou li'st ; the man so calPd my friend, 
Was generous honest, faithful, just and valiant; 
Noble in his mind, and in his person lovely; 
Dear to my eyes, and tender to my heart : 
But thou, a wretched, base, false, worthless coward, 
Poor even in soul, and loathsome in thy aspect ; 
All eyes must shun thee, and all hearts detest thee . 
Prithee avoid, nor longer cling thus round me, 
Like something baneful, that my nature's chill'd at." 



STRESS 83 



THE WAR-PATH OF THE DOONES. 

I could keep still no longer, but wriggled away from 
his arm, and along the little gullet, still going flat on my 
breast and thighs, until I was under a gray patch of stone 
with a fringe of dry fern round it ; there I lay, scarce twen- 
ty feet above the heads of the riders, and I feared to draw 
my breath, though prone to do it with wonder. For now 
the beacon was rushing up, in a fiery storm to heaven, and 
the form of its flame came and went in the folds, and the 
heavy sky was hovering . But most of all the flinging fire 
leaped into the rocky mouth of the glen below me, where 
the horsemen passed in silence, scarcely deigning to look 
round . Heavy men and large of stature, reckless ho w they 
bore their guns, or how they sat their horses, with leathern 
jerkins, and long boots, and iron plates on breast and head, 
plunder heaped behind their saddles, and flagons slung in 
front of them ; more than thirty went along, like clouds 
upon red sunset . Some had carcasses of sheep slinging 
with their skins on, others had deer, and one had a child 
flung across his saddle-bow . Whether the child were dead 
or alive, was beyond my vision, only it hung head down- 
ward there, and must take the chance of it. They had 
got the child, a very young one, for the sake of the dress, 
no doubt, which they could not stop to pull off from it ; 
for the dress shone bright, where the fire struck it, as if 
with gold and jewels . I longed in my heart to know most 
sadly what they would do with the little thing, and wheth- 
er they would eat it . 

It touched me so to see that child, a prey among those 
vultures, that in my foolish rage and burning I stood up 
and shouted to them, leaping on a rock, and raving out of 
all possession . Two of them turned round, and one set 
his carbine at me, but the other said it was but a pixie, and 



84 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

Little they knew, that the pixie then before them would 
dance their castle down one day. 
" I orna Doone . " Plackmore 

XLV. Law of Thorough Stress. — In bold com- 
mand, fearlessness, exultation, denunciation or bragga- 
docio. Thorough Stress, an abrupt heavy force through- 
out the vowel, is employed. 

Examples of Thorough Stress — 

Macbeth — Hownowjou secret, black, and midnight 
hags! 
What is'tyou do? 

I conjure you, by that which you profess, 
Howe'er you came to know it, answer me : 
Though you untie the winds, and let them fight 
Against the churches ; though the yesty waves 
Confound and swallow navigation up ; 
Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down; 
Though castles topple on their warders' heads; 
Though palaces and pyramids do slope 
Their heads to their foundations > though the 

treasure 
Of nature s germens tumble all together, 
Even till destruction sicken ; answer me 
To what I ask you . 
* Macbeth . " Shakespeare . 

Weel, then ! what I say 's this, — Dang my bones and 
body, if I stan' this ony longer. Do you gang whoam wi, 
me ; and do you loight an toight young whipster look sharp 
out for a broken head, next time he cums under my hond. 

Cum whoam, tell 'ee, cum whoam ! 
John Browdie in " Nicholas Niclcleby . " Dickens. 



TREMULOUS STRESS 85 

Coriolanus — The fires i' the lowest hell fold-in the 
people ! 
Call me their traitor ! Thou injurious tribune ! 
Within thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths, 
In thy hands clutch'd as many millions, in 
Thy lying tongue both numbers, I would say 
1 Thou liest ■ unto thee with a voice as free 
As 1 do pray the gods . 

Shakespeare . 

XLVI. Law of Tremulous Stress. — In laughter, 
joy, suppressed excitement, fear, extreme pathos, gtief 
and pity, in the broken voice of sorrow or the trem- 
bling accents of old age, we find the Tremulous or 
Intermittent Stress . 

Note — The student should use carefully this 
form of stress as it is likely to be merely a cold, mental 
pathos or mock laughter, producing in the listener the op- 
posite impression from that intended . When a speaker 
sheds tears his listeners forget what he is talking about 
and pity him. When he pretends to shed tears they 
laugh at him . Avoid giving pathos a whine, as this leaves 
an irritating and undesirable impression . There seems to 
be one safe way to reach the proper result with Tremulous 
Stress, that is, to be so impressed by the emotion as to strug- 
gle for its control . If once the feeling breaks, you have 
" lost your powder . '' 

Delsarte has given some helpful suggestions concerning 
the management of the breath . 

" Inspiration is a sign of grief . 

Expiration is a sign of tenderness . 

Sorrow is inspiratory; happiness expiratory. 



86 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

The inspiratory act expresses sorrow,dissimulation . 
The expiratory act expresses love, expansion . 
The suspensatory act expresses reticence and disqui- 
etude • A child who has just been corrected deservedly 
and who recognizes his fault, expires . Another corrected 
unjustly, and who feels more grief than love, inspires . 

A cry is a prolonged exclamation . 

A groan plaintive, two succeeding tones, one sharp, the 
final one deep . 

Lamentation, voice loud, plaintive, despairing, obstinate, 
indicating a heart which can neither contain nor restrain 
itself . 

Sob, succession of sounds produced by continuous inspi- 
rations, convulsive ending in a long, violent inspiration . 

Sigh, weak, low tone, quick inspiration followed by a 
slow and deep expiration . 

Laugh, loud, quick, monotonous sounds, uninterrupted 
series of slight expirations, rapid somewhat convulsive, pro- 
duced by deep inspiration . " 

Examples of Tremulous Stress — 

Pauline — Alas ! I have shown too much 

The rashness of a woman : he is touched 
To the noble heart . What's done and what's past 

help 
Should be past grief ; do not receive affliction at 
my petition . 

L eontes — Prithee bring me 

To the dead bodies of my queen and son ; 
One grave shall be for both, upon them shall 
The causes of their death appear, unto 
Our shame perpetual . Once a day I'll visit 
The chapel where they lie, and tears shed there 
Shall be my recreation; so long as nature 



TREMULOUS STRESS 87 

Will bear up with this exercise, so long 
I daily vow to use it . Come and lead me 
Unto these sorrows . 
"The Winter's Tale. " Shakespeare. 

u But what a strange transformation was there ! The 
wrinkles were gone . The traces of age, and pain, and 
weariness were all smoothed out; the face had grown 
strangely young, and a placid smile was on the pale lips . 

The old man was awed by the likeness to the bride of 
his youth . He kissed the unresponsive lips, and said softly : 

6 You've found heaven first, Janet, but you'll come for 
me soon . It's our first parting in over seventy years, but 
it won't be for long — it won't be for long . ' And it was 
not . The winter snows have not fallen, and to-day would 
have been their diamond wedding . " 

Ouf ! I leaned out of the window for fresh air. 

There came a hurry of feet and little feet, 

A sweep of lute-strings, laughs and whifts of song, — 

" Flower o' the broom, 

Take away love, and our earth is a tomb ! 

Flower o' the quince, 

I let Lisa go, and what good in life since ? 

Flower o' the thyme " — and so on . 
Round they went . 
Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter 
Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight, — 
three slim shapes, 

And a face that looked up zooks, sir, 

flesh and blood 
That's all I'm made of ! Into shreds it went, 
Curtain and counterpane and coverlet, 
All the bed-furniture — a dozen knots, 
There was a ladder ! Down I let myself, 



88 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so dropped 
And after them. I came up with the fun 
Hard by Saint Lawrence, hail fellow, well met, — 
" Flower o' the rose, 

If Fve been merry, what matter who knows ? " 
iC Fra Lippo Lippi. " Robert Browning. 

In shirt of check and tallowed hair, 
The fiddler sits in the bullrush chair 
Like Moses' basket stranded there 
On the brink of Father Nile. 
"Money Musk. " Taylor. 

" A fool, a fool ! — I met a fool i' the forest, 
A motley fool ; — a miserable world ! — 
As I do live by food, I met a fool; 
Who laid him down and bask'd in the sun, 
And railed on lady Fortune in good terms, 
In good set terms, — and yet a motley fool. " 

XLVII. Law of Time. — Time in speech includes 

1 . Quantity, or time given to a word. 

2. Rate, or time given to a sentence. 

3. Pause, or time between words. 

XLVIII. Law of Quantity , Rate, and Pause . — 
Light, joyous, animated, genial, exalted, impassioned 
and vehement language ; hate J ear, terror, indignation, 
and mirth demand a corresponding vivacity of utter- 
ance — Short Quantity, Fast Rate, and Short Pause . 

Majesty, power, dignity, grandeur, vastness, solem- 
nity, sublimity, adoration, warning, reverence, grief 
veneration, horror, awe, deliberation, solemn delibera- 
tion, solemn denunciation, melancholy and despair — 



PAUSE 89 

being slow-moving emotions — call for Long Quantity, 

Slow Rate and Long Pause . 
XLIX. Law of Poetic Pause . — In poetry or blank 

verse we should by pauses slightly mark the rhythm 

and the lines, but not sufficiently to interfere with the 

grammatical structure or to express too clearly the idea 

of verse . This is Poetic Pause . 

Note — He is a poor reader who observes Poetic 

Pause in so marked a degree as to employ a sing-song tone, 

or to so neglect it as to read verse exactly like prose . 

Examples where the sense allows a slight marking of 

the Poetic Pause — 

Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee 
Jest and youthful jollity, 
Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, 
Nt)ds, and becks and wreathed smiles 
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, 
And love to live in dimple sleek ; 
Sport that wrinkled Care derides, 
And Laughter holding both his sides. 
Come, and trip it as you go 
On the light fantastic toe. 

*U Allegro." Milton. 

Softly the moonlight is shed on the lake 
Cool is the summer night, — wake ! O, awake ! 
Faintly the curfew is heard from afar, 
List ye! O, list to the lively guitar. 
Now the wind rises and ruffles the pine, 
Hippies foam-crested like diamonds shine, 
They flash where the waters the white pebbles lave, 
In the wake of the moon as it crosses the wave . 

* Serenade. " James G . Pereival . 



§0 SCIENCE OP SPEECH 

Examples of verse to be rendered much like Prose — 

I'm President, Cashier, and Board of quite a wealthy bank, 

With none except myself to please — and no one else to 
thank, 

But nothing makes my heart beat fast — and I am grow- 
ing old, 

With not a thing to love or leave except this pile of gold . 

But I have learned a thing or two ; I know as sure as fate, 

When we lock up our lives for wealth, the gold key comes 
too late; 

And that I'm poorer now than through those happy days 
in which 

I owned a heart, and did not know that I had struck it rich ! 

" The Miner' 8 Story. " Will Carlton. 

u So Michael the baby had his way, 
And hammered and chipped, and would not play 
With the simple and senseless sort of toys 
That pleased the rest of the village boys. 
They laughed at the little churches he 
Would daily build at his nurse's knee: 
They scouted the pictures that he drew 
On the smooth, white slab with a coal or two; 
They taunted and teased him when he tried 
To mould from the rubbish cast aside 
Rude figures, and screamed 6 Scultori ! ' when 
His bits of marble he shaped like men. " 

L. Law of Rhetorical Pauses . — Rhetorical Pauses , 
sometimes long and sometimes almost imperceptible y 
are used to give a clear appreciation of the meaning. 
They are pauses required by the sense, but not by the 
grammatical construction, hence are not indicated by 
marks of punctuation. 



RHETORICAL PAUSES 91 

Principles to observe in the use of Rhetorical Pauses . 

/. Separate the logical subject and predicate by 
a pause, and, when emphatic, the grammatical subject 
and predicate . 

2. A pause should usually be made after an 
emphatic word to fix it firmly in the mind. ( Some* 
times it oc cms just before to arouse expectation, and is 
then known as the Suspensive Pause . ) 

3. A pause is required when the connection of 
ideas is not close ; as in parenthetical expressions, trans- 
positions, ellipses, separate and explanatory clauses, 
etc . , — also in hesitation and interruptions . 

4. Abrupt, Long Pauses often accompany Short 
Quantity and Fast Rate in breathless dramatic expres- 
sion . 

LI. Law of Grammatical Pauses . — Grammatical 
Pauses are indicated by the ordinary marks of punctu- 
ation, and are simply to show grammatical structure and 
relations . The sense must determine whether or not 
the voice should observe them . 

LIT. Law of Style. — All language must be uttered 
in its appropriate Style, which may be Conversational 
Oratorical, or Dramatic. 

Studies in Pause or Ellipse and the Conversational, 
Oratorical and Dramatic Styles will be found treated 
more fully in " The Art of Kendering. " - 



92 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

LIII. Law of Conversational Style . — Simple 
narration, description and all direct utteranc e when 
unemotional must be given in a purely Conversational 
style with appropriate force, whether read or spoken 
to few individuals or many . 

Examples of Conversational Selections — 

AUNT BETSY. 

Dear me ! When we think of what we might do and 
don't do — of the opportunities we neglect — we have great 
cause to reproach ourselves. I'm very, very sorry that 
youthful levity caused me to refuse the hand of Mr. 
Melancthon Gypsum when I was a girl. I objected to 
him because he had warts on his nose, and was cross-eyed. 
What a silly young creature I was, to be sure ! Such an 
opportunity! Why, you know him, dear. It is the Dr. 
Gypsum who is paying attention to widow Potkins now . 
He has found five partners to share his labors . Why, you 
shocking girl ! No he's not a Mormon . He's had the 
misfortune to lose five wives . That's nothing to smile at 
I'm sure ! 

When he proposed to me I was a mere child. He told 
me he was well aware that no woman's constitution would 
stand the climate he was going to more than two years . 
He was then twenty-one, and expected to stay abroad until 
he was forty, so he would have nine or ten wives at least 
during his sojourn in that foreign land, and I suppose he 
thought it was my duty to be the first one. He didn't 
look for happiness in this wicked world, he said, and he 
hoped 1 didn't either. But, as I said, I was frivolous at 
the time. The first Mrs .Gypsum lived two years . I've 
read her biography . The natives treated her dreadfully . 
She was just eighteen when she left this world . 



CONVERSATIONAL STYLE 93 

Ah ! when I called at the parsonage the other day I saw 
the portraits of Dr. Gypsum's wives, all in a row : Clarisse 
Gypsum, aged eighteen; Maria Gypsum, aged twenty ; 
Martha Gypsum, aged seventeen ( she died on the voyage 
over ) ; Sarah Gypsum, aged twenty-four, and Amelia 
Gypsum, who lived to he forty. She was a widow when 
the Doctor married her, and the only one of his wives 
that knew how to manage natives. Mr. Gypsum came 
home one day and found her driving two of 'em about 
harnessed to a little basket carriage. They thought it was 
their duty ; she'd told 'em 'twas . Mr . Gypsum didn't like 
it, but /think it was right smart of her. don't you ? 

They fried her in slices at last, I'm told, and offered her 
to a big stone idol with three noses, that they thought all 
the world of . All of 'em came to some violent end, but 
the one that died going over : and two or three of the 
little babies were carried off, and maybe are worshiping 
idols now, for all we know about them . Dear me I have 
seen the biographies of the five wives, all in b lue and gold, 
with a portrait on the first page . 

Ah ! if I hadn't been so frivolous, mine might have been 
among 'em . There isn't one so good-looking as I am, and 
how proud I should have been of it , to be sure . But tha's 
the way with young girls; they can't see what's best for 'em. 

Mary Kyle Dallas. 



ALONG THE BEACH 

I will be quiet and talk with you, 
And reason why you are wrong. 

You wanted my love — is that much true? 

And so I did love, so I do : 
What has come of it all along? 



94 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

I took you — how could I otherwise? 

For a world to me, and more ; 
For all, love greatens and glorifies 
Till God's a-glow to the loving eyes, 

In what was mere earth before . 

Yes, earth — yes, mere ignoble earth ! 

Now do I misstate, mistake ? 
Do I wrong your weakness and call it worth ? 
Expect all harvest, dread no dearth, 

Seal my sense up for your sake ? 

O Love, Love, no, Love ! not so, indeed 

You were just weak earth, I knew: 
With much in you waste, with many a weed, 
And plenty of passions run to seed, 
But a little good grain too . 

And such as you were, I took you for mine : 

Did not you find me yours, 
To watch the olive and wait the vine, 
And wonder when rivers of oil and wine 

Would flow, as the Book assures ? 

Well, if none of these good things came, 

What did the failure prove ? 
The man was my whole world, all the same, 
With his flowers to praise or his weeds to blame, 

And, either or both, to love . 

Yet this turns now to a fault — there ! there ! 

That I do love, watch too long, 
And wait too well, and weary and wear; 
And 'tis all an old story, and my despair 

Fit subject for some new song : 



CONVERSATIONAL STYLE 95 

" How the light, light love, he has wings to fly 

At suspicion of a bond : 
My wisdom has bidden your pleasure good-by, 
Which will turn up next in a laughing eye, 

And why should you look beyond ? " 



Kobert Browning. 



DAVID, 



In a quiet old town in the hills of New Hampshire, 

Some fifty years since — or it may be three-score — 
Lived a preacher beloved and revered by his people, 

Who called him " the Elder " ; nor need we know more. 
Many years he had led them by purest example, 

Many years he had fed them with precepts divine ; 
Had married and buried, baptized and befriended ; 

Had broken the bread and poured out the wine . 
So peaceful his life and so healthful his habits, 

Though sixty, he yet was as straight as a mast, 
His cheeks like red apples, his laugh ever ready, 

His hair slick and glossy, though silvering fast. 
His girls were all married and settled around him, 

With husbands and children and cares of their own; 
His sons too had left him for business and college, 

And he and his wife were now living alone . 
Alone ; yes, and lonely for lack of the children; 

The house was so still it was fairly forlorn ; 
He found the hours heavy when weary of study. 

When all chopped was the wood and all hoed was the 
corn. 
His wife had grown feeble, and seldom went with him 

In the heavy-topped chaise to make calls on the sheep, 
But in warm afternoons, when her house was in order, 

Would retire to the bedroom and there fall asleep. 



96 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

The Elder, deserted, one day fell a-thinking 

Of David of old, who, when his plans went wrong, 
Could solace his sorrows, forget all his trials, 

By the aid of sweet music, with harp and with song. 
u O, could I but do likewise, " the good man reflected, 

" How swiftly, how smoothly these moments would 
glide ! 
The complaints of my deacons, the lack of my children, 

The advances of age, I could then well abide . 
But alas for the harp ! for I never yet saw one; 

And alas for the songs ! for I never could rhyme . 
A jew's-harp I've mastered, but that can't content me • 

O David, what would you have played in my time? 
My people would laugh if I bought me a fiddle; 

To flute and bass viol I do not incline ; 
Too old are my fingers to play on a spinet, 

Nor could I afford one . I must not repine . " 
So he stifled his longings and almost forgot them, 

Till one day to the city on business he went ; 
And while threading its mazes, confused by its tumult, 

u What sweet sounds are these with its clamor now 
blent?" 
Smile not at the rustical ear of the Elder . 

" 'Tis only a hand-©rgan, " answered his son 
And the old man passed on, but his pulses were leaping, 

And before he went home he had bought himself one 
Of the best German make, with three separate barrels, 

And each barrel played for him ten distinct airs 
Just by turning the handle. O blessed invention ! 

He felt it an answer direct to his prayers . 
No day was no n long, and no labor seemed tedious, 

With this fountain of melody ever at hand 
To pour forth its treasures of soothing refreshment — 

An oasis of joy in a dull, prosy land. 



CONVERSATIONAL STYLE 97 

As it made his wife nervous, 't was kept in the garret 

( In the rose of his joy this had been the sole thorn ) ; 
And there, all alone in the brown raftered chamber, 

'Mid festoons of dried apple, of sage, and seed-corn, 
The Elder would sit, when his day's work was over, 

With a smile on his face as he ground out the air, 
While the long dusky sunbeams streamed in the west 

window, 
Gently touched his broad shoulders and crowned his 

white hair . 
'T was thus he was seen unawares by Miss Kitty, 

A sweet city maiden betrothed to his son, 
Who, spending a week on the farm of his daughter, 

Strolled over to call on the parents of John . 
'T was a day in mid- June, and the old-fashioned roses, 

Deep red and pare white, were in bloom round 
the door, 
Which stood frankly open, the cat on the threshold, 

And a gray braided mat to protect the white floor . 
Most welcome the coolness and shade of the kitchen : 

But where was the Elder and where was the dame? 
Profound was the stillness, save pussy's soft purring, 

And a similar sound from the bedroom that came . 
Light tiptoed the maiden through kitchen, past bedroom, 

To the sitting-room study. No Elder was there. 
But hark ! A sweet sound is now heard in the distance. 

Bewildered, she follows it, climbs the steep stair, 
Then gropes her way onward through darkened 

guest-chambers, 
And climbs to the garret, still led by the sound. 

'T is her favorite waltz ! u Now surely I'm dreaming ! " 
Exclaims pretty Kitty in wonder profound . 

At the top of the stair she peeps cautiously round her. 

Half screened by blue " comforters " hung on a line; 



98 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

And there sat the blessed old saint at his organ, 

Grinding out dancing music in rapture divine 
Do you think Kitty laughed as she stood there beholding 

The simple old man by his organ beguiled, 
The foreground of blankets, herbs, andirons, and apples, 

And the clumsy old cradle that held John, a child ? 
No ; she listened in silence, bright tears on her lashes, 

Till he ceased . Then she crept unsuspected away, 
And a new love for John and his gentle old father 

Seemed to grow in her heart from the scene of that day . 

Laura D. Nichols. 

THE MILL. 

Don't you remember, Lill, 

The mill by the old hill side, 
Where we used to go in the summer days 

And watch the foamy tide ? 
And throw the leaves of the rocking beech 

On its surface smooth, and bright ; 
When they'd float away like emeralds, 

In a flood of golden light ? 

And the miller,Lill, with his slouchy cap, 

And eyes of mildest grey ; 
Plodding about his dusty work, 

Singing the livelong day, 
And the coat that hung on the rusty nai], 

With many a motley patch, 
By the rude old door, with broken sill, 

And string and wooden latch . 

And the water-wheel, with its giant arms 

Dashing the beaded spray, 
And pulling the weeds from the sand below, 



CONVERSATIONAL STYLE 99 

That it tossed in scorn away . 
The sleepers, too, bearded and old, 

Frowning over the tide ; 
Defying the waves, while the chinks of Time 

Were made in the old mill's side. 

Well, Lill, the mill is torn away, 

And a factory, dark and high, 
Looms like a tower, and puffs its smoke 

Over the clear blue sky. 
And the stream is turned away, above — 

The bed of the river is bare ; 
The beech is withered, bough and trunk, 

And stands like a spectre there . 

The miller, too has gone to rest ; — 

He sleeps in the vale below; 
They made his grave in the winter time, 

Down where the willows grow . 
But now the boughs are green again, 

And the winds are soft and still ; 
I send you a sprig, to mind you, Lill ? 
Of me, and the rude old mill . 

M . Elva Wood . 

CHILD AND BOATMAN. 

" Martin, I wonder who makes all the songs. " 
" You do, sir?" 

" Yes, I wonder how they come. " 
" Well, boy, I wonder what you'll wonder next! " 
u But somebody must make them ? " 

"Sure enough. " 
" Does your wife know? " 

" She never said she did n 



100 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

" You told me that she knew so many things . " 
" I said that she was a London woman, sir, 
And a fine scholar, but I never said 
She knew about the songs . " 

" I wish she did. ^ 

* And I wish no such thing; she knows enough, 
She knows too much already . Look you now, 
This vessel's off the stocks, a tidy craft . " 

* A schooner, Martin ? " 

" No, boy, no : a brig, 
Only she's schooner-rigged, — a lovely craft. " 
" Is she for me? O, thank you, Martin dear. 
What shall I call her? " 

" Well, sir, what you please. " 
<• Then write on her « The Eagle. ' " 

" Bless the child ! 
Eagle ! why, you know naught of eagles, you . 
When we lay off the coast, up Canada way, 
And chanced to be ashore when twilight fell, 
That was the place for eagles; bald they were, 
With eyes as yellow as gold, " 

" O, Martin, dear, 
Tell me about them . " 

" Tell ! there's naught to tell, 
Only they snored o' nights and frighted us, " 
"Snored? " 

" Ay, I tell you, snored ; they slept upright 
In the great oaks by scores ; as true as time 

I'd had aught upon my mind just then, 
I wouldn't have walked that wood for unknown gold; 
It was most awful . When the moon was full, 
I've seen them fish at night, in the middle watch, 
When she got low I've seen them plunge like stones, 
And come up fighting with a fish as long, 



CONVERSATIONAL STYLE 101 

Ay, longer than my arm ; and they would sail — 
When they had struck its life out — they would sail 
Over the deck, and show their fell, fierce eyes, 
And croon for pleasure, hug the prey, and speed 
Grand as a frigate on the wind . " 

" My ship, 
She must be called ' The Eagle ■ after these . 
And, Martin, ask your wife about the songs 
When you go in at dinner-time . " 

"Not I. " 
Jean Ingelow 

THE WANDERINGS OF A STAR. 

We reached Albany at 9 o'clock, and waited, inconven- 
iently, till half -past ten, for the night express- train to start. 
We took a lonely walk along the streets, saw men as if 
they had been trees, looked upon glittering windows as a 
vain show, and speculated upon the sensations of a man in 
the midst of all the impulses of busy life but not affected 
by them, walking unmoved amid things which move others. 

As the hour drew near for starting, we hastened back to 
the cars, took possession of the whole seat, meditating meth- 
ods of extracting sleep out of a long night-ride. Every 
one seemed doing the same thing, namely, keeping people 
out of their seats . 

We left Albany at half -past ten o'clock. At about 11 
the hum of conversation died away . Every one was busy 
with the unnatural problem of sleep . In the cars, stretch- 
ing one's self out for balmy sleep, means, curling one's self 
up like a cat in a corner. Short limbs are a luxury when 
a man sleeps by the square inch . First, you lie down by 
the right side, against the window, till a stitch in your side, 
worming its way through your uneasy dream, like an awl 



102 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

leads you to reverse your position . As you lean on the in- 
side end of your seat, the conductor knocks your hat off 
or uses your head as a support to his steps as he sways along 
the rockkig passage . At length, with a groan which ex- 
presses the very feeling of every bone and muscle and indi- 
vidual organ in your body, you try to sit upright, and to 
sleep erect. But erect sleep is perilous, even when it is 
possible, You nod and pitch, you collapse and condense 
and finally settle down in a promiscuous heap, wishing that 
you were a squirrel, or a kitten, and curiously remembering 
dogs that could convolute on a mat, and birds that could 
tuck their head under their wings, and draw their feet and 
legs up under their feathers . O ! that I were round like 
a marble, and could be rid of protruding members ! But 
such slumberous philosophy and somnolent yearnings for 
circular shapes die out as you sink again into a lethargy 
until the scream of the whistle, the grinding of the brakes, 
the concussions and jerks, arouse you to the fact that you 
are stopping to wood and water, and that some surely insane 
person has come in at this station, and wishes a part of your 
seat ! " No, sir ! I am a sovereign squatter here, I claim 
a pre-emption right . I have staked off this seat, and after 
all I have suffered, shall not give it up to anybody . " 
So the wheezing obesity, at least 300 avoirdupois, goes 
on . A faint smile plays on my lips to think what a time 
somebody will have who takes that continent of flesh into 
his seat ; for, in his despair, he will soon plunge into some- 
body's seat, like an oversetting load of hay . 

But the incomers walk disconsolately along, examining 
each side for a spot . It is quite easy to defend yourself 
against the pert and knowing . But that poor, pale, faint- 
looking woman, carrying a sleeping babe, that fears to dis- 
turb any one, — * Here, madam, sit down here — room 
enough — sit down, if you please . " " But I fear, sir, I 



CONVERSATIONAL STYLE 103 

shall, with my babe — " " No, madam — no trouble — not 
if there were ten more children . " Poor little thing, it 
sleeps amidst the night, and all this inconvenience and 
weariness of trouble, as a sea-bird sleeps in some grassy- 
cove, on the swing of the black waters . By and by, you 
shall not sleep so . You shall grow up to bear your own 
troubles, and the storms that blow shall not be trokenby a 
mother's bosom, but strike right into your own. 
You offer a part of your shawl ; you insist that the child 
shall be divided, or the care of it, and by a quiet way you 
gradually get the little fellow wholly into your own lap 
and press him to your heart, and drop down tears on him 
God knows why ! How it rests you to feel his sweet bur- 
densomeness. The mother knows her child's safety, and 
drops asleep. It is a face with which sorrow has been 
busy. But you ask no questions. About three in the 
morning she leaves. You carry the child, and give it 
to her ; and as she turns and disappears into the somber- 
gray night, you hear the little fellow's voice chirruping, 
like a bird's startled note, as it dreams in the still night, 
and speaks in its sleep from out of leaves and darkness. 

You return, and look for a moment at the grotesque 
appearance of a car full of sleeping and sleepless wretches. 
By contrast everybody looks ten times sleepier than before, 
after you have looked at them . At length, the long night- 
mare wears itself out . Color begins to come into the cheeks 
of the morning. The air smells fresher. The birds are 
seen, and might be heard, if the huge Bird of Speed that 
whirls you along were not so noisy . 

At length, about two o'clock we reached Buffalo, tired ? 
dusty, and eminently patient. Amid sentiments, high- 
soaring thoughts, and back-reaching remembrances and 
affections, there arose stern thougts of dinner. 

Henry Ward Beecher. 



104 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

LIV . Law of Oratorical Style . — Bold, earnest 
language accompanied by an active undercurrent of 
feeling, whether in reading, speaking or conversation, 
requires an Oratorical Style, marked by round, full 
tones, heavy force, prevailing monotone and much 
fervor \ 

Examples of Oratorical Selections — 

DEDICATION OP GETTYSBURG CEMETERY. 

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth 
upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and 
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether 
that nation or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated^ 
can long endure . 

We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We 
are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place 
of those who have given their lives that that nation might 
live. But, in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot 
hallow this ground . The brave men, living and dead, who 
struggled here, have consecrated it far beyond our power 
to add *or to detract . The world will very little note or 
long remember what we say here, but it can never forget 
what they did here . 

It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated to the un- 
finished work they have thus far so nobly carried on . 
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task 
remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take 
increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave 
the last full measure of devotion ; that we here highly 
resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that 
the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, 



ORATORICAL STYLE 105 

and that the government of the people, by the people, and 
for the people, shall not perish from the earth . 

Abraham Lincoln. 

BACK FROM THE WAR. 

I never realized what this country was and is as on the 
day when I first saw some of these brave men of the Army 
andNavy . It was when, at the close of the war, our armies 
came back, and marched in review before the President's 
stand at Washington . I do not care whether a man was a 
Republican or Democrat, a Northern man or a Southern 
man ; if he had any emotion of nature, he could not look 
upon it without weeping , God knew that the day was 
stupendous, and he cleared the heaven of cloud and mist 
and chill, and sprung the blue sky as a triumphal arch 
for the returning warriors to pass under. From 

Arlington Heights the spring foliage shook out its welcome, 
as the hosts came over the hills, and the sparkling waters 
of the Potomac tossed their gold to the feet of the battal- 
ions as they came to the Long Bridge and in almost inter- 
minable line passed over. The Capitol never looked so 
majestic as that morning, snowy white, looking down upon 
the tides of men that came surging down, billow after bil- 
low. Passing in silence, yet I heard in every step the 
thunder of conflicts through which they had waded, and 
seemed to see from their smoke-blackened flags the blood 
of our country's martyrs . For the best part of two days 
we stood and watched the filing on of what seemed endless 
battalions, brigade after brigade, division, after division, 
rank beyond rank ; ever moving, ever passing ; marching, 
marching; tramp, tramp, tramp — thousands after thou- 
sands, battery front, arms shouldered, columns solid, shoul- 
der to shoulder, wheel to wheel, charger to charger, nostril 
to nostril. 



106 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

Commanders on horses whose manes were intwined 
with roses, and necks enchained with garlands, fractious at 
the shouts that ran along the line, increasing from the clap- 
ping of children clothed in white, standing on the steps of 
the Capitol, to the tumultuous vociferation of the hun- 
dreds of thousands of enraptured multitudes, crying Huzza ! 
Huzza ! Gleamin g muskets, thundering parks of artillery, 
rumbling pontoon-wagons, ambulances from whose wheels 
seemed to sound out the groans of the crushed and the 
dying that they had carried . These men came from the 
balmy Minnesota; those from Illinois prairies. These were 
often hummed to sleep by the pines of Oregon ; those were 
New England lumbermen . Those came out of the coal- 
shafts of Pennsylvania. Side by side in one great cause, 
consecrated through fire and storm and darkness, brothers 
in peril, on their way home from Chancellorsville and 
Kenesaw Mountain andFredericksburg, in lines that seem- 
ed infinite, they passed on. We gazed and wept and 
wondered, lifting up our heads to see if the end had come ; 
but no ! Looking from one end of that long avenue to 
the other, we saw them yet in solid column, battery front, 
host beyond host, wheel to wheel, charger to charger, nos- 
tril to nostril, coming as it were from under the Capitol . 
Forward ! Forward ! Their bayonets, caught in the sun, 
glimmered and flashed and blazed, till they seemed one long 
river of silver, ever and anon changing into a river of fire. 
No end to the procession, no rest for the eyes. But hush, 
uncover every head ! Here they pass, the remnant of ten 
men of a full regiment. Silence! Widowhood and 
orphanage look on, and wring their hands. But wheel into 
line, all ye people ! North, South, East, West — all decades, 
all centuries, all millenniums ! Forward, the whole line . 

T. De Witt Talmage. 



ORATORICAL STYLE 107 

THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM . 

Here are old trees, tall oaks and gnarled pines, 
That stream with gray-green mosses ; here the ground 
Was never trenched by spade, and flowers sprang up 
Unsown, and die ungathered. It is sweet 
To linger here, among the flitting birds, 
And leaping squirrels, wandering brooks, and winds 
That shake the leaves, and scatter, as they pass, 
A fragrance from the cedars, thickly set 
With pale blue berries . In these peaceful shades — 
Peaceful, unpruned, immeasurably old — 
My thoughts go up the long dim path of years, 
Back to the earliest days of liberty . 

Oh Freedom ! thou art not, as poets dream, 
A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs, 
And wavy tresses gushing from the cap 
With which the Roman master crowned his slave 
When he took off the gyves . A bearded man, 
Armed to the teeth, art thou ; one mailed hand 
Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword ; thy brow. 
Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred 
With tokens of old wars ; thy massive limbs 
Are strong with struggling . Power at thee has launched 
His bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee ; 
They could not quench the life thou hast from heaven. 
Merciless power has dug thy dungeon deep, 
And his swart armorers, by a thousand fires, 
Have forged thy chain ; yet, while he deems thee bound. 
The links are shivered, and the prison walls 
Fall outward : terribly thou springest forth, 
As springs the flame above a burning pile, 
And shoutest to the nations, who return 
Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies . 



108 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

Thy birthright was not given by human hands ; 
Thou wert twin-born with man . In pleasant fields, 
While yet our race was few, thou sat'st with him, 
To tend the quiet flock and watch the stars, 
And teach the reed to utter simple airs. 
Thou by his side, amid the tangled wood, 
Didst war upon the panther and the wolf, 
His only foes; and thou with him didst draw 
The earliest furrows on the mountain side, 
Soft with the deluge , Tyranny himself, 
Thy enemy, although of reverend look, 
Hoary with many years, and far obeyed, 
Is later born than thou; and as he meets 
The grave defiance of thine elder eye, 
The usurper trembles in his fastnesses . 

Thou shalt wax stronger with the lapse of years, 
But he shall fade into a feebler age ; 
Feebler, yet subtle. He shall weave his snares, 
And spring them on thy careless steps, and clap 
His withered hands, and from their ambush call 
His hordes to fall upon thee . He shall send 
Quaint maskers, forms of fair and gallant mien, 
To catch thy gaze, and uttering graceful words 
To charm thy ear; while his sly imps, by stealth, 
Twine round thee threads of steel, light thread on 

thread, 
That grow to fetters ; or bind down thine arms 
With chains concealed in chaplets. Oh ! not yet 
May'st thou unbrace thy corslet, nor lay by 
Thy sword; nor yet, O Freedom ! close thy lids 
In slumber ; for thine enemy never sleeps, 
And thou must watch and combat till the day 
Of the new earth and heaven . But wouldst thou rest 



ORATORICAL STYLE 109 

Awhile from tumult and the frauds of men, 
These old and friendly solitudes invite 
Thy visit . They, while yet the forest trees 
Were young upon the un violated earth, 
And yet the moss-stains on the rock were new, 
Beheld thy glorious childhood, and rejoiced . 

William Cullen Bryant. 

PAUL'S ADDRESS TO THE MEN OF ATHENS. 

Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are 
too superstitious . For as I passed by, and beheld your de- 
votions, I found an altar with this inscription, " to the 
unknown god . " Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship 
him declare I unto you . 

God that made the world and all things therein, seeing 
that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples 
made with hands; neither is worshipped with men's hands, 
as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, 
and breath, and all things ; and hath made of one blood 
all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, 
and hath determined the times before appointed, and the 
bounds of their habitation ; that they should seek the Lord, 
if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though 
he be not far from every one of us : for in him we live, 
and move, and have our being; as certain also of your 
own poets have said, for we also are his offspring . 

Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we 
ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto god, 
or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device . And 
the times of this ignorance God winked at ; but now com- 
mandeth all men every where to repent : because he hath 
appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in 
righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained ; where- 
of he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath 
raised him from the dead. 



110 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 



THE BLESSINGS OP PEACE. 

Peace is the grand Christian charity, the fountain and 
parent of all other charities. Let peace be removed, and all 
other charities sicken and die. Let peace exert her glad- 
some sway, and all other charities quicken into celestial life. 
Peace is a distinctive promise and possession of Christianity. 
So much is this the case, that, where peace is not, Christian- 
ity cannot be. 

There is nothing elevated which is not exalted by peace. 
There is nothing valuable, which does not contribute to peace. 

Of Wisdom herself it has been said, that all her ways 
are pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. Peace has 
ever been the longing and aspiration of the noblest souls — 
whether for themselves or for their country. 

In bitterness of exile> away from the Florence which he 
has immortalized by his divine poem, pacing the cloisters 
of a convent, in response to the inquiry of the monk, — 
" What do you seek? " Dante said, in words distilled from 
his heart, " Peace ! Peace! " In the memorable English 
struggle, when King and Parliament were rending the land, 
a gallant supporter of the monarchy, the chivalrous Falk- 
land, touched by the intolerable woes of war, cried in words 
which consecrate his memory more than any feat of arms, 
"Peace! Peace! Peace! " 

Not in aspiration only, but in benediction, is this word 
uttered. As the apostle went forth on his errand, as the 
son left his father's roof, the choicest blessing was, — 
" Peace be with you ! M As the Savior was born, angels 
from Heaven, amidst quiring melodies, let fall that supreme 
benediction, never before vouchsafed to the children of the 
human family, — Peace on earth and good-will toward men. 

Charles Sumner 



DRAMATIC STYLE 111 

LV. Law of Dramatic Style. — In language of 
violent emotion and passion, the tone and manner are 
controlled by that passion, and the speaker is, as it 
were, swept onward in his utterance by the power 
which has paralyzed his will. This is the Dramatic 
Style . 

Note. — Fervor added to the Conversational gives 
the Oratorical ; passion added gives the Dramatic . 

Examples of Dramatic Selections — 

THE UNCLE. 

I had an uncle once — a man 
Of threescore years and three ; — 

And when my reason's dawn began, 
He'd take me on his knee; 

And often talk, whole winter nights, 
Things that seemed strange to me . 

He was a man of gloomy mood, 
And few his converse sought; 

But, it was said, in solitude 

His conscience with him wrought; 

And there, before his mental eye, 
Some hideous vision brought . 

There was not one in all the house 
Who did not fear his frown, 

Save I, a little careless child, 
Who gamboled up and down, 

And often peeped into his room, 
And plucked him by the gown. 



112 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

I was an orphan and alone,- — 
My father was his brother, 

And all their lives I knew that they 
Had fondly loved each other; 

And in my uncle's room there hung 
The picture of my mother . 

There was a curtain over it, — 
'Twas in a darkened place, 

And few or none had ever looked 
Upon my mother's face, 

Or seen her pale expressive smile 

Of melancholy grace . 

One night — I do remember well, 
The wind was howling high, 

And through the ancient corridors 
It sounded drearily — 

I sat and read in that old hall ; 
My uncle sat close by . 

I read — but little understood 
The words upon the book ; 

For with a sidelong glance I marked 
My uncle's fearful look, 

And saw how all his quivering frame 
In strong convulsions shook . 

A silent terror o'er me stole, 
A strange, unusual dread; 

His lips were white as bone — his eyes 
Sunk far down in his head ; 

He gazed on me, but 'twas the gaze 
Of the unconscious dead. 

Then suddenly he turned him round, 



DRA MA TIC STYLE 113 

And drew aside the veil 
That hung before my mother's face; 

Perchance my eyes might fail, 
But ne'er before that face to me 

Had seemed so ghastly pale. 

" Come hither, boy ! " My uncle said, — 

I started at the sound ; 
Twas choked and stifled in his throat, 

And hardly utterance found : — 
" Come hither, boy ! " then fearfully 

He cast his eyes around . 

" That lady was thy mother, once, 
Thou wert her only child ; 

God ! I've seen her when she held 
Thee in her arms and smiled, — 

She smiled upon thy father, boy, 
'Twas that which drove me wild ! 

He was my brother, but his form 
Was fairer far than mine ; 

1 grudged not that; — he was the prop 

Of our ancestral line, 
And manly beauty was of him 
A token and a sign. 

Boy, I loved her too, — nay, more, 

Twas I who loved her first; 
For months — for years — the golden thought 

Within my soul was nursed; 
He came — he conquered — they were wed — 
My air-blown bubble burst ! 

Then on my mind a shadow fell, 
And evil hopes grew rife; 



114 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

The damning thought stuck in my heart, 

And cut me like a knife, 
That she, whom all my days I loved 

Should be another's wife ! 

By heaven ! it was a fearful thing 

To see my brother now, 
And mark the placid calm that sat 

Forever on his brow, 
That seemed in bitter scorn to say, 

' I am more loved than thou ! * 

I left my home — I left the land — 
I crossed the raging sea ; — 

In vain — in vain — where'er I turned, 
My memory went with me ; — 

My whole existence, night and day, 
In memory seemed to be . 

I came again — I found them here — 
Thou'rt like thy father, boy — 

He doted on that pale face there, 
I've seen them kiss and toy, — 

IVe seen him locked in her fond arms, 
Wrapped in delirious joy ! 

He disappeared — draw nearer child; - 
He died— no one knew how; 

The murdered body ne'er was found, 
The tale is hushed up now ; 

But there was one who rightly guessed 
The hand that struck the blow . 

It drove her mad— yet not his death- . 

No — not his death alone : 
For she had clung to hope, when all 
Knew well that there was none; — 



DRAMATIC STYLE 115 

No, boy, it was a sight she saw 
That froze her into stone ! 

I am thy uncle, child, — why stare 

So frightfully aghast? — 
The arras waves, but know'st thou not 

Tis nothing but the blast ? 
I, too, have had my fears like these, 

But such vain fears are past . 

I'll show thee what thy mother saw, — 

I feel 'twill ease my breast, 
And this wild tempest-laden night 

Suits with the purpose best ; — 
Come hither — thou hast often sought 

To open this old chest . 

It has a secret spring ; the touch 

Is known to me alone; 
Slowly the lid is raised, and now — 

What see you that you groan 
So heavily? — That thing is but 

A bare-ribbed skeleton . " 

A sudden crash — the lid fell down, 
Three strides he backward gave, — 

" Oh God ! it is my brother's self 
Returning from the grave ! 

His grasp of lead is on my throat, 
Will no one help or save ? " 

That night they laid him on his bed, 

In raving madness tossed ; 
He gnashed his teeth, and with wild oaths 

Blasphemed the Holy Ghost ; 



116 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

And, ere the light of morning broke, 
A sinner's soul was lost . 

A. Graham Bell. 

THE NIGHT-WATCH. 

Soon as her lover to the war had gone, 
Without or tears or commonplace despair, 
Irene de Grandfief reassumed the garb 
That at the convent she had worn — black dress 
With narrow pelerine — and the small cross 
In silver at her breast . Her piano closed, 
Her jewels put away — all save one ring, 
Gift of the Viscount Roger on that eve 
In the past spring-time when they had parted 
Bidding farewell, and from Irene's brow 
Culling one silken tress, that he might wear it 
In a gold medallion close upon his heart 

In the ranks 
He took a private's place . What that war was 
Too well is known . 

Days came and went till weeks wore into months. 
Still she held back her rebel tears, and bravely strove 
To live debarred of tidings. 

Then came the siege of Paris — hideous time! 
Spreading through France as gangrene spreads, 
Invasion drew near Irene's chateau. 
Roger at Metz was with his regiment safe, 
And at last date un wounded. He was living; 
He must be living; she was sure of that. 
Counting her beads, she waited, waited on . 
Wakened, one morning, with a start, she heard 
In the far copses of the park shots fired 
In quick succession. 



DRAMA TIC STYLE 117 

It had indeed 
Been a mere skirmish — that, and nothing more. 

* 'T would be well, " 
Remarked Irene, u that an ambulance 
Were posted here . * 

In fact, they had picked up 
Just at that moment, where the fight had been, 
A wounded officer — Bavarian he — 
Shot through the neck . 

And when they brought him in, 
That tall young man, all pale, eyes closed and bleeding, 
Irene commanded he be borne 
Into the .room by Roger occupied 
When he came wooing there . Then while they put 
The wounded man to bed, she carried out 
Herself his vest and cloak all stained with blood ; 
Bade the old valet wear an air less glum, 
And stir himself with more alacrity ; 
And when the doctor dressed the wound, lent aid, 
As of the Sisterhood of Charity, 
With her own hands , The officer at last, 
Wonder and gratitude upon his face, 
Sank down among the pillows deftly laid as one asleep. 

Evening came, 
Bringing the doctor . When he saw his patient, 
A strange expression flitted o'er his face, 
As to himself he muttered; " Yes, flushed cheek; 
Pulse beating much too high . Phew ! a bad night ; 
Fever, delirium, and the rest that follows ! ,! — 
*' But will he die ? " with tremor on her lip 
Irene asked . 

" Who knows ? If possible, 
We must arrest the fever . This prescription 



118 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

Oft succeeds . But some one must take note 
Of the oncoming fits ; must watch till morn, 
And tend him closely . * 

" Doctor, I am here. " 

v Not you, young lady ! Service such as this 
One of your valets can — " 

" No, doctor, no ! 
Roger perchance may be a prisoner yonder, 
Hurt, ill . If he such tending should require 
As does this officer, I would he had 
A gentle lady for his nurse . " 

"So be it. 
You will keep watch, then, through the night . 

The fever 
Must not take hold, or he will straightway die. 
Give him the potion four times every hour . 
I will return to judge of its effects 
At daylight . " Then he went his way . 

Scarcely a minute had she been in charge 
When the Bavarian, to Irene turning, said, 
" This doctor thought I was asleep ; 
But I heard every word . I thank you, lady ; 
I thank you from my very inmost heart — 
Less for myself than for her sake, to whom 
You would restore me, and who there at home 
Awaits me . n 

" Hush ! Sleep if you can . 
Do not excite yourself. Your life depends 
On perfect quiet . " 

" No, no ! 
I must at once unload me of a secret 
That weighs upon me . I a promise made ; 
And I would keep it. Death may be at hand. " 



DRAMA TIC STYLE 119 

" Speak, then, * Irene said, * and ease your soul. " 
u It was last month, by Metz ; 'twas my ill fate 
To kill a Frenchman . n 

She turned pale and lowered 
The lamp-light to conceal it. He continued : 
" We were sent forward to surprise a cottage . 
I drove my sabre 

Into the soldier's back who sentry stood 
Before the door . He fell ; nor gave the alarm . 
We took the cottage, putting to the sword 
Every soul there . 

Disgusted with such carnage, 
Loathing such scene, I stepped into the air ; 
Just then the moon broke through the clouds 

and showed me 
There at my feet a soldier on the ground . 'Twas he, 
The sentry whom my sabre had transpierced . 
I stooped, to offer him a helping hand ; 
But, with a choked voice, ' It is too late/ he said. 
1 I must needs die .... You are an officer — 
Promise — only promise 

To forward this, ' he said, his fingers clutching 
A gold medallion hanging at his breast, 
< To— ■ Then his latest thought 
Passed with his latest breath . The loved one's name, 
Mistress or bride affianced, was not told 
By that poor Frenchman . Seeing blazoned arms 
On the medallion, I took charge of it, 
Hoping to trace her at some future day 
Among the old nobility of France, 
To whom reverts the dying soldier's gift . 
Here it is . Take it . But, I pray you, swear 
That, if death spares me not, you will fulfill 
This pious duty in my place. " 



120 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

Therewith 
He the medallion handed her; and on it 
Irene saw the Viscount Roger's blazoned arms . 
" I swear it, sir ! " she murmured. u Sleep in peace!' 

Solaced by having this disclosure made, 
The wounded man sank down in sleep . Irene, 
Her bosom heaving, and with eyes aflame 
Though tearless all, stood rooted by his side. 
"Yes, he is dead, my lover ! These his arms ; 
His blazon this ; the very blood-stains his ! 

Struck from behind, 
Without or cry or call for comrades' help, 
Roger was murdered . And there, sleeping, lies 
The man who murdered him ! Yes, he has boasted 
How in the back the traitorous blow was dealt . 
And now he sleeps with drowsiness oppressed, 
Roger's assassin ; and 'twas I, Irene, 
Who bade him sleep in peace ! O 
With what cruel mockery, cruel and supreme — 
Must I give him tendance here, 
By this couch watch till dawn of day, 
As loving mother by a suffering child ! 
So that he die not ! 

And there the flask upon the table stands 
Charged with his life • He waits it ! Is not this 
Beyond imagination horrible? 

Oh, away ! such point 
Forbearance reaches not. What ! — while it glitters 
There in sheath, the very sword 
Wherewith the murderer struck the blow . 
Fierce impulse bids it from the scabbard leap — 
Shall I, in deference 
To some fantastic notion that affects 



DRAMA TIC STYLE 121 

Human respect and duty, shall I put 

Repose and sleep and antidote and life 

Into the horrible hand by which all joy 

Is ravished from me ? Never ! I will break 

The assuaging flask, .... But jio ! *Twere 

needless that. 
I need but leave to Fate to work the end . 
Fate, to avenge me, seems to be at one 
With my resolve . 'Twere but to let him die ! 
Yes, there the life-preserving potion stands ; 
But for one hour might I not fall asleep ? 

Infamy ! " 

And still the struggle lasted, till the German, 
Roused by her deep groans from his wandering 

dreams, 
Moved, ill at ease, and feverish, begged for drink. 

Up toward the antique Christ in ivory 
At the bed's head suspended on the wall 
Irene raised the martyr's look sublime; 
Then, ashen pale, but ever with her eyes 
Turned to the God of Calvary, poured out 
The soothing draught, and with a delicate hand 
Gave to the wounded man the drink he asked. 
And so wore on the laggard, pitiless hours. 
But when the doctor in the morning came, 
And saw her still beside the officer, 
Tending him and giving him his drink 
With trembling fingers, he was much amazed 
To see that through the dreary watches of the night, 
The raven locks that crowned her fair young brow at 
Set of sun, by morning's dawn had turned to 
snowy white. 

Francois Coppee. 



122 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

THE MONSTER CANNON. 

They heard a noise unlike anything usually heard . The 
cry and the noise came from inside the vessel. One of the 
carronades of the battery, a twenty-four pounder, had be- 
come detatched. 

This, perhaps, is the most formidable of ocean events. 
Nothing more terrible can happen to a war vessel, at sea 
and under full sail . A cannon which breaks its moorings 
becomes suddenly some indescribable, supernatural beast. 
It is a machine which transforms itself into a monster. 
This mass runs on its wheels, like billiard-balls, inclines 
with the rolling, plunges with the pitching, goes, comes, 
stops, seems to meditate, resumes its course, shoots from 
one end of the ship to the other like an arrow, whirls, 
steals away, evades, prances, strikes, breaks, kills, extermi- 
nates. It is a ram which capriciously assails a wall. 
Add this — the ram is of iron, the wall is of wood . This 
furious bulk has the leaps of the panther, the weight of 
the elephant, the agility of the mouse, the pertinacity 
of the axe, the unexpectedness of the surge, the rapidity 
of lightning, the silence of the sepulchre . It weighs ten 
thousand pounds, and it rebounds like a child's ball . Its 
whirlings are suddenly cut at right angles. What is to be 
done? How shall an end bey put to this? A tempest 
ceases, a cyclone passes, a wind goes down, a broken mast 
is replaced, a leak is stopped, a fire put out; but what shall 
be done with this enormous brute of bronze ? How try to 
secure it ? You can reason with a bull-dog, astonish a bull 
fascinate a boa, frighten a tiger, soften a lion ; no resource 
with such a monster as a loose cannon . You cannot kill 
it : it is dead ; and at the same time it lives with a sinister 
life which comes from the infinite. It is moved by the 
ship, which is moved by the sea, which is moved by the 



DRAMA TIC STYLE 123 

wind. This exterminator is a plaything. The horrible 
cannon struggles, advances, retreats, strikes to the right 
strikes to the left, flees, passes, disconcerts expectation, 
grinds obstacles, crushes men like flies. 

The carronade, hurled by the pitching, made havoc in 
the group of men, crushing four at the first blow; then re- 
ceding and brought back by the rolling, it cuts a fifth un- 
fortunate man in two, and dashes against the larboard side a 
piece of the battery which it dismounted . Thence came 
the cry of distress which had been heard . All the men 
rushed towards the ladder. The battery was emptied in a 
twinkling of an eye . 

The captain and lieutenant, although both intrepid men, 
had halted at the head of the ladder, and, dumb, pale, hes- 
itating, looked down into the lower deck . Some one pushed 
them to one side with his elbow and descended . It was 
an old man, a passenger. Once at the foot of the ladder, he 
stood still. 

Hither and thither along the lower deck came the cannon. 
One might have thought it the living chariot of the Apoca- 
lypse. The four wheels passed and repassed over the dead 
men, cutting, carving, slashing them, and of the five corpses 
made twenty fragments which rolled across the battery; 
the lifeless heads seemed to cry out; streams of blood 
wreathed on the floor following the rolling of the ship. 
The ceiling, damaged in several places, commenced to open 
a little. All the vessel was filled with a monstrous noise. 

The captain promptly gained his presence of mind, 
and caused to be thrown into the lower deck all that could 
allay and fetter the unbridled course of the cannon, — 
mattresses, hammocks, spare sails, rolls of cordage, 
bags of equipments, and bales of counterfeit assignats, 
of which the corvette had a full cargo . But of what avail 
these rags ? Nobody daring to go down and place them 



124 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

properly, in a few minutes they were lint. 

There was just sea enough to make the accident as com- 
plete as possible. A tempest would have been desirable; 
it might have thrown the cannon upside down, and, once 
the four wheels were in the air, it could have been mastered. 
As it was, the havoc increased. There were chafings and 
even fractures in the masts,which, jointed into the frame of 
the keel, go through the floors of vessels and are like great 
round pillars. Under the convulsive blows of the cannon, 
the foremost had cracked, the mainmast itself was cut. 
The battery was disjointed . Ten pieces out of the thirty 
were hors de combat ; the breaches in the sides multiplied, 
and the corvette commenced to take in water . 

The old passenger who had gone down to the lower deck 
seemed a man of stone at the bottom of the ladder . He 
cast a severe look on the devastation . He did not stir . 
It seemed impossible to take a step in the battery . 

They must perish, or cut short the disaster ; something 
must be done, but what ? What a combatant that car- 
ronade was! That frightful maniac must be stopped. 
That lightning must be averted . That thunder-bolt must 
be conquered. 

The captain said to the lieutenant, " Do you believe in 
God, Chevalier? " 

"Yes. No. Sometimes." 

"In the tempest? " 

" Yes, and in moments like these . " 

u In reality God only can rid us of this trouble . " 

All were hushed, leaving the cannon to do its horrible 
work. Outside, the billows beating the vessel answered 
the blows of the cannon . It was like two hammers alter- 
nating. All of a sudden, in that kind of unapproachable 
circuit wherein the escaped cannon bounded, a man ap- 
peared, with an iron bar in his hand • It was the author 



DRAMATIC STYLE 125 

of the catastrophe, the chief gunner, guilty of negligence 
and the cause of the accident, the master of the carronade . 
Having done the harm, he wished to repair it , He had 
grasped a handspike in one hand, some gun-tackle with a 
slip-knot in the other, and jumped upon the lower deck • 

Then a wild exploit commenced ; a Titanic spectacle; 
the combat of the gun with the gunner ; the battle of matter 
and intelligence ; the duel of the animate and the inanimate. 

The man had posted himself in a corner, and with his bar 
and rope in his two fists, leaning against one of the riders 
standing firmly on his legs which seemed like two pillars of 
steel, livid, calm, tragic, as though rooted to the floor, he 
waited . 

He was waiting for the cannon to pass near him . The 
gunner knew his piece, and it seemed to him that it must 
know him. He had lived for some time with it. How 
many times he had thrust his hand into its jaws ! It was 
his tamed monster . He commenced talking to it as he 
would to his dog . 

" Come, " said he. He loved it, maybe. He seemed to 
wish that it would come towards him . But to come towards 
him would be to come upon him. And then he was lost. 
How avoid the crush ? That was the question . All look- 
ed upon the scene, terrified. Not a breast breathed freely, 
except, perhaps, that of the old man who alone was on the 
lower deck with the two combatants, a sinister witness. 
He might himself be crushed by the piece . He stirred not* 
Under them the blinded sea directed the combat . 

At the moment when, accepting this dreadful hand-to- 
hand encounter, the gunner challenged the cannon, a chance 
rolling of the sea kept it immovable as if stupefied . 

" Come then! " said the man. It seemed to listen. 

Suddenly it jumped towards him . The man escaped 
the shock. The struggle began . A struggle unheard of. 



126 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

The fragile wrestling with the invulnerable. The monster 
of flesh attacking the brazen beast . On one side force, on 
the other a soul . All this was passing in a shadow . It 
was like the indistinct vision of a prodigy . 

A soul ! a strange thing ! one would have thought the 
cannon had one also, but a soul of hate and rage . This 
sightless thing seemed to have eyes. The monster appeared 
to watch the man . There was — one would have thought 
so at least — cunning in this mass. It also chose its mo- 
ment. It was a kind of gigantic insect of iron, having, or 
seeming to have, the will of a demon . At times, this colos- 
sal grasshopper would strike the low ceiling of the battery, 
then fall back on its four wheels like a tiger on its four 
claws, and commence again to dart upon the man . He, 
supple, agile, adroit, writhed like an adder in guarding a- 
gainst all these lightning-like movements. He avoided en- 
counters, but the blows he shunned were received by the 
vessel, and continued to demolish it . 

An end of broken chain had remained hanging to the 
carronade. One end of it was fastened to the carriage. 
The other, free, turned desperately round the cannon and 
exaggerated all its shocks . The chain, multiplying the blows 
of the ram by its lashings, caused a terrible whirl 
around the cannon, — an iron whip in a fist of brass, — and 
complicated the combat. 

Yet the man struggled . At times, even, it was the man 
who attacked the cannon ; he crouched along the side hold- 
ing his bar and his rope; and the cannon seemed to under- 
stand, and, as though divining a snare, fled . The man, 
formidable, pursued it. 

Such things cannot last long. The cannon seemed to 
say all at once — " Come ! there must be an end to this ! '> 
and it stopped . The approach of the denouement was felt. 
The cannon, as in suspense, seemed to have, or did have, — 



DRAMA TIC STYLE 127 

because to all it was like a living thing, — a ferocious pre- 
meditation . Suddenly, it precipitated itself on the gunner . 
The gunner drew to one side, let it pass, and called to it, 
laughing — u Try again . " The cannon, as though furious, 
broke a carronade to larboard ; then, seized again by the 
invisible sling which held it, bounded to starboard toward 
the man, who escaped . Three carronades sunk down un- 
der the pressure of the cannon; then as though blind, and 
knowing no longer what it was doing, it turned its 
back to the man, rolled backward and forward, put the stem 
out of order, and made a breach in the wall of the prow. 
The man had taken refuge at the foot of the ladder, a few 
steps from the old man who was present. The gunner 
held his handspike at rest . The cannon seemed to per- 
ceive him, and without taking the trouble to turn around, 
fell back on the man with the promptness of an axe-stroke. 
The man if driven against the side was lost. All the 
crew gave a cry , But the old passenger, till then immov- 
able, sprang forward, more rapidly than all those wild 
rapidities . He had seized a bale of false assignats, and, at 
the risk of being crushed, he had succeeded in throwing it 
between the wheels of the cannon. This decisive and 
perilous movement could not have been executed with 
more promptness and precision by a man accustomed to all 
the manoeuvres of gunnery. The bale had the effect of 
a plug . A pebble stops a bulk ; a branch of a tree diverts 
an avalanche . The cannon stumbled . The gunner in his 
turn, taking advantage of this terrible juncture, plunged 
his iron bar between the spokes of one of the hind wheels. 
The cannon had stopped. It was finished. The man 
had vanquished . The ant had subdued the mastodon; 
the pigmy had made a prisoner of the thunderbolt. 

Victor Hugo, 



128 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

LVL Law of Analysis. — The reader should at a 
glance take in the thought, mentally analyze it, clothe 
it with reality by an earnest manner, vitalize it by a 
proper use of Initial Stress, dignify it by attention to 
Quantity, and place it before the hearer, thought by 
thought — not word by word. 

LVIL Law of Emphasis. — Upon the following 
classes of words, emphasis should be employed: 

1. Words expressing the prominent idea. 

2. Words to which particular attention is directed. 

3. Words in real or implied contrast. 

4. Words opposed to or contra-distinguished 
from each other. 

5. Exclamations and interjections. 

6. When words follow one another in a series 
of ideas or objects, each should receive greater empha- 
sis than the preceeding. 

Note. — Emphasis consists in any change from 
the prevailing Quantity, Pitch, Force or Time, and must 
De determined by the sentiment. 

LVIII. Law of Grouping. — In reading, particu- 
larly, each idea should be treated in a mannet corre- 
sponding to its value. Sentences are often made up 
of one great truth, several unimportant statements, a 
qualifying clause, explanations, a condition, and sev- 
eral connectives. To give all these elements equal prom- 
inence would be absurd. 



IMITATIVE MODULATION 129 

Group the explanations, etc. by themselves. Give the 
one prominent thought greatest force, the subordinate 
clauses their due, and the mere connectives only slight 
utterance. 

Note. — The relative value of words in a sentence 
may be illustrated by a handful of coins. A cent, though 
of little value as compared with the larger pieces, may be 
indispensable in making up the sum . So many words in 
a sentence, while absolutely necessary to the meaning, are 
simply " cents " in value and should be so regarded in 
the reading, 

LIX. Law of Imitative Modulation. — The sound 
of many words is in a greater or less degree an index 
to the sense. Thought is often more clearly expressed 
by attention to this fact, and by applying that pecul- 
iar intonation that will most vividly express the mean- 
ing. 

Note 1. — This is termed " Word Individuality, " 
" Sound to Sense, " "Play upon Words," '' Expressive 
Intonation " and u Suggestive Quality. " 

Note 2. — In very serious discourse the judgment 
will determine whether suggestive intonation can be ap- 
plied without detracting from the solemnity of the thought- 

Note 3 — See Wallis's List of Derivatives, Fenno's 
Elocution, Page 90. 

LX. Law of Economy. — To promote purity of tone 
and ease of utterance, the speaker should, except when 



130 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

the Aspirate Quality is desired, inhale at rhetorical 
pauses only, sustain the voice to the close, and aim at 
almost complete vocalization of breath. 

LXL Law of Transition. — By mechanical drill on 
the Elements of Modulation the power she u Id be ac- 
quired of suddenly passing from one form of utterance 
to another, as from a light gentle tone with rapid rate 
to a measmed heavy tone of gf eat Volume. 

Note. — In Transition or change from one con- 
dition of the thought to another the mind should lead and 
the voice and action follow after with the expression . 

Transition means not only a change of voice, modulation, 
etc. but it means a change of the position of the feet as 
well. We may say it means a change of the whole muscu- 
lar expression. Take for example, the change to be made 
in passing from one subject to another, or from descrip- 
tive language to the impersonation of a character. 

Whatever kind of transition is to be made it should never 
be done by blending one form of expression into another 
1 ut the change must be made with decision, instantly even 
as the thought, and without calling attention to self. 

To illustrate more particularly. In Daniel II. verse 3, 
the point of transition comes between the words " them, " 
and " I, " " And the king said unto them, ' I have 
dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know 
the dream. ■ " After the word " them, " make a pause 
long enough to take on the troubled character of v the king. 
After giving his speech, drop instantly his character and 
resume the narration. 

Train the feet to take the proper position and the other 
agents of expression: word, voice, gesture readily fall in line. 



TRANSITION 131 

Changing the position of the feet does not always mean 
stepping into a different place, but poising the body on the 
feet in harmony with the thought, whether it be Eccentric, 
Concentric, or Poised. When the feet are once in the 
proper position, let the emotion pass like a wave over the 
entire body. With proper positions of the feet, and with the 
body in harmony with the thought, the voice will give ? 
generally, natural expression. To gain all this, the feet 
must be trained soldiers, ready, alert, responsive to the 
commander thought, answering instantly. 

There seems to be a wrong notion among beginners and 
some speakers who believe there is no need for them to be 
beginners, concerning this point of change of position. 
As a substitute for expression of the matter presented, there 
is a tendency to move, sometimes to plunge, aimlessly about 
like a caged tiger while speaking, thinking it adds life and 
action to the effort. It does all this, but alas, it is only 
physical and only a spectacle that awakens the same depth 
of thought in the beholder as is in the mind of the per- 
former. While if the transitions are properly made, there 
will never be lack of life and action, and instead of mean- 
ingless rant the body and voice will re-enforce the words. 

Every position and attitude of the body should be in 
harmony with the thought, helping to speak it out. 
But if at the moment of utterance, the body instead of 
being attentive, thoughtful and expressive is like an unruly 
schoolboy roaming about, out of order, highest results 
are impossible. 

Careful trasitions help to enforce the thought and to 
mark naturally the pauses. When this is done right one 
knows when he has hit the mark. 

Further treatment of Transition will be found under 
heading of Gesture. Studies for making the body respon- 
sive under Physical Culture in " Art of Rendering. " 



132 SCIENCE OF SPEECH • 

LXII. Law of Climax. — In a succession of objects 
or ideas, each should receive greater emphasis than that 
immediately preceeding, and at the climax , or extreme 
point of the emphatic scale, the vocal effort should cul- 
minate with a degree of force or intensity correspond- 
ing to the importance of the statement or argument. 

Note 1. — Climax shows gradation — the top of the 
Rhetorical ladder. 

Note 2. — There should be but one climax in any 
perfect work of art. The artist should work steadily toward 
the climax. It should be like the crest of a great wave 
with reaction before and depression after, leaving valleys 
on either side of the crest. 

Says Spencer — " As immediately after looking at the sun 
we cannot perceive the light of a fire, while by looking at 
the fire first and the sun afterwards we can perceive both." 
So it should be with climax. The expression should bring 
out the climax in a way to preserve the unity, and still not 
obscure any important matters. 

LXIIL Law of Repose. — Since reserved force is 
immeasurable because unrevealed, the highest powet 
is mastery, the highest mastery, self-mastery, and of 
self-mastery repose is the emblem, in order to convey 
the greatest possible idea of pouer we should mark the 
utterance with that Repose which indicates unlimited 
reserve strength. 

LA IV. Law of Responsiveness. — The reader shoidd 
have such command of the modulations as to be able 
instantly to fotm and use that combination of them 



RESPONSIVENESS 133 

which will best express the finest shades of the thought 
momentarily in mind. The body should ever respond 
to the thought. 

Note L — Speech is a succession of Kaleidoscopic 
effects. Its constantly changing phases each require an 
appropriate combination of Quality, Pitch, Force and Time, 
with delicate inflections and almost spiritual pauses. A 
new idea strikes the mind ; the kaleidoscope is shifted, with 
a click the dozen bits of colored glass arrange themselves in 
new positions, and there is exposed a surprising mosaic 
of color altogether different from that upon which the eye 
last rested. 

Note 2. — The second Key-note in speech is 
responsiveness . 

LXV. Law of Fervor. — Fervor is an effective el- 
ement, giving directness and earnestness to speech. It 
usually emanates from the moral nature and is soul 
force, convincing the hearer, and when added to real 
power becomes eloquence. Magnetism in a speaker may 
be but Fervor and Repose added to sympathy — unmeas- 
ured strength and intensity of purpose fit ed by all the 
ardor of the soul, irresistible in its powef and carrying 
the will of an audience before it like a tempest. 

Note 1. — As the electric light is formed by neg- 
ative and positive currents in their fierce struggle to pass 
an obstacle, so the burning heat of eloquence is produced 
by currents of appropriate language and intense feeling 
meeting in the voice and struggling for the divine right of: 
way to the human heart. 



134 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

Note 2. — Fervor is illustrated by the salutation 
of a friend as differing from that of a mere acquaintance. 
Let the voice and .manner express the warmth we feel 
toward the thought we render and which we aim to induce 
others to accept and love, for the soul loves that which the 
heart chooses. 

LXVL Law of Relation of Values. — We should 
observe the relation of moral or emotive values, giving 
weight to the important and bringing out the desirable 
with all our heart and art, the contrasted undesirable 
being simply mentioned : as — " Better to smell the 
oiolet cool than sip the glowing wine . " 

LXVIL Law of Proper Atmosphere. — In emotive 
utterance every thought should have its proper atmos- 
phere of feeling. 

LXVIIL Law of Magnanimity. — One of the highest 
emotive qualities of voice is Magnanimity, Kindness, 
Genet osity of nature manifesting itself through the tones. 
This is rooted in heart culture, as the responsive voice 
reveals only what is in the mind and soul . 

LXIX Law of Animation. — An essential element 
of success in speaking or reading is Animation, — ear- 
nestness, enthusiasm and energy of utterance . 

LXA- Law of Naturalness and Spontaneity. — 
Naturalness and Spontaneity should be studiously pre- 
served in all utterance . 



PERSONATION 135 

LXXL Law of Directness. — In addressing one or 
many individuals, particular attention should be paid 
to Directness of utterance, that thought may be convey- 
ed straight to the hearer and not given forth in a gener- 
al, diffuse and indefinite manner. Thus each listener 
feels a personal intei est in what is uttered. 

Note. — Too many speakers shoot over the heads 
of their audiences . 

LXXII. Law of Imagination. — He who would 
speak effectively, must train his imagination, or pict- 
uring faculty, for upon this depends all vividness in 
delivery . 

LXXIIL Law of Personation. — In solemn of seri- 
ous discourse the speaker is always himself in his 
best condition, but when seriousness is not a prime 
requisite, the language when put in the muuth of an- 
other demands more or less Personation in its delivery. 

Note 1. — To personate is to imitate voice and 
gesture. Personation is illustration. One picture con- 
veys a more vivid and lasting impression than many words. 

Note 2. — Gough's success as an orator lay mainly 
in his ability to people the platform with life-like char- 
acters, to he persuasive, argumentative, mirthful, — in short, 
oratorical or dramatic at will , 

Note 3. — " The textures of the muscles, having been 
thoroughly trained, are responsive to the sympathetic as- 
similation of character, . . . the conception so vividly real- 
ized that every thing seems to come from within ontward . " 



136 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

LXXIV. Law of Gesture. — Gesture ( or action ) is 
not to be regarded as gesticulation simply ', but in a 
broader sense of including the whole visible orator, — 
his presence, whether commanding or repulsive ; his 
attitude, whether well poised or awkward; his bearing, 
whether unstudied or self-conscious ; his manner, 
whether decided or aimless; his movements, whether 
graceful or clumsy; his facial expression, whether 
animated or unmoved; his gesticulation, whether ap- 
propriate or meaningless . 

LXXV. Law of Purpose. — The object of gestute 
is to enforce speech, — to make plain, to add vividness 
to language as color does to outline . Words are but 
skeletons; by modulation and feeling they are clothed 
with flesh, but action endows them with life . 

The specific purposes of gesture are : 



.[ 



1. To point where. — Location . 

2 . To show how . — Illustration. \ Objective . 

3 . To reflect the state of the * 

speaker's mind . C Subjective . 

4. Emphasis. ) 

Note 1. — A question may arise as to when gesture 
enforces speech . To speak a thought and picture it at the 
same time by gesture is hardly an enforcement of it, but a 
double expression, as writing the same line twice adds no- 
thing to its meaning - However, if the pictorial representa- 
tion adds essential details that would not have been gath- 



GESTURE 137 

ered from the mere words, or if it give a clearer and more 
lasting impression^ it has enforced speech . 

Note 2. — It will be shown under Law of Appli- 
cation and may be mentioned here that the rules of voice 
and gesture apply to individuals in social and business 
life as well as to the orator . 

Note 3. — Subjective gestures are of greater im- 
portance than those of Location and Illustration, though 
more difficult to set to rule because of widely differing in- 
dividualities . Locative and Illustrative— Objective 
gestures are easily indicated and properly used in descriptive 
and dramatic recital, but in oratory and all earnest address 
we read the man in his individualized Emphatic gestures . 

Note 4 . — By Emphatic gesture is meant more thar 
simply a stroke upon an emphatic word • The speakei 
full of his subject is in a positive, an active, aggressive 
state, emphasized, as it were, by the importance of his 
theme . Then every sentence is italicized — every utter- 
ance emphatic. 

Note 5 . — " Gesture, " said Delsarte, " is an 
elliptical language, " making pauses eloquent with added 
meaning . 

LXXVL Law of Manner. — Manner in gesture 
corresponds with Style in expression, being Conver- 
sational, Oratorical and Dramatic . 

Note. — By observation we find that naturally in 
conversing gesticulation is performed with the forearm 
only, the elbow being the center of motion, while in or- 
atory the whole arm moves from the shoulder in wide 
sweeps and bold curves , In dramatic language the whole 



138 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

world of movements is drawn upon and often found inade- 
quate to express the burning passions of the soul . 

LXXVIL Law of Gesture Quality. — The kinds of 
gesture vaty as do the kinds of voice . In colloquial 
language we should use simplicity and grace of move- 
ment; in fervid oratory ', magnificence and boldness of 
action. The Qualities are: Magnificence \ Boldness, 
Energy, Variety \ Grace, Propriety, Precision, Simplicity. 

LXXVIII. Law of Position. — Position should be 
erect and dignified, with chest presented squarely to 
the audience. 

Position may be Passive or Active, Active 
Advanced or ActiveRetired, according to the sentiment . 

LXXIX* Law of Passive Position. — In tranquil- 
ity the body maintains an easy, natural poise . 

LXXX. Law of Active Position. — In all emphatic 
states of mind the person becomes charged with energy, 
with muscles tense, head erect and body firm. 

Active Position is taken in manly utterance, voicing 
noble sentiment, and in all earnest and emphatic lan- 
guage . 

LXXXI. Law of Active Advanced Position. — 
The body is thrown well forward upon the advanced 
foot in earnest expression, eagerness, or Eccentric 
thought. 




EXPRESSIONS OP THE FEET 

1. Poise III 2. Courage III 3. Eagerness I 

4. Exultation I 5. Secrecy I 6. Weakness taking a Strong Attitude I 

7. Meditation II 8. Defiance II 



POSITIONS OF THE FEET 139 

LXXX1L Law of Retired Position.— In firmness, 
decision, determination and independence the weight of 
the body is thrown on the retired foot, Concentric . 

LXXXIIL Law of the Feet.— The most natural 
position is for the weight of the body to rest mainly on 
one foot, the feet nearly at right angles and not wide 
apart nor touching each other . This gives the body 
such poise that the arm may be used with freedom 
in gesture, unity being preserved by employing the 
right hand in gesture when the weight of the body is 
on the right foot and changing the weight to the left 
foot when necessary to use the left arm . Such changes 
are restful and give an appearance of ease to the 
speaker, but they should be made with a glide rather 
than a step . Sidewise steps should be avoided, and 
greater change of position is permhsable at the instant 
of beginning a new paragraph . 

Note 1. — Changes from Active to Passive occur, 
of course, at the instant demanded by the sentiment. 

Note 2. — The feet start in fear, stamp in impa- 
tience, etc. but these movements are found in dramatic 
representation only. 

LXXXI V. Law of the Head — In dignified speech 
the head should be carried easily and gracefully erect, 
not fixed, but with too few rather than too many 
movements. 

Note. — The head bowed down denotes humility; 



140 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

thiown back, arrogance; inclined to the side, languor; 
gently inclined forward, respect or deference. 

The head never turns in the direction of an emphatic 
gesture, but the same impulse that throws out the hand in 
gesture of Location first turns the eye and face toward the 
spot. Gestures of Illustration, if somewhat general in 
their nature, do not require that you remove the eye from 
the audience. 

JLXXX V. Law of Facial Expression. — In all an- 
imated language the countenance should become the 
mirror of the mind, reflecting the emotions. The eyes 
should beam in joy, kindle in hope, flash in anger, 
and melt in pity. In lively conversation the play of 
the countenance is expressive, even eloquent, and it 
should be the aim in reading to acquire an equal 
facility and naturalness. 

LXXXVL Law of the Hands. — The face is most 
expressive in speech; next are the hands, which can 
urge, supplicate, ad)nire, compare, refuse, repress and 
entreat even more eloquently than words. In ordinary 
gesture the hands take one of five positions, namely: 
Supine, Prone, Vertical, Pointing, Clenched. 

Note. — We should not overload any of the nu 
merous vehicles of expression, as is done when we try to 
express wholly by voice or by voice and hands. All parts 
of the body, as well as words, tones and inflections, should 
speak forth in harmony. 




EXPRESSIONS OF THE HEAD 



T TYrpnl-riY i 4 - Expectation 
1. eccentric -j 2> Sympathy 



II. Concentric 



( 3. Meditation 
1 1. Hatred 



III. Poised || ; fope^.^ 



MANIFESTATIONS OF THE HANDS 141 

hX XXVII Law of Supine Hand. — The hand 
easily opened with palm upward, fore finger and little 
finget nearly straight and slightly separated from the 
other two fingers which are gently curved, with the 
hand sloping toward the little finger, and the thumb 
well but not stiffly extended, is called the Supine Hand. 

Note 1. — The language of the Supine Hand is 
affirmation, candor, honesty, communication, unreserved- 
ness, the hand of sympathy in its broadest sense, the hand 
used in giving out the thought. 

It is used in nearly all ordinary language as description, 
in reference, assertion, concession, argument, or appeal, and 
in direct address. 

Note 2.— In Delsarte's illustration with the cube, the 
Supine Hand supports the object, so this hand is used to 
suport the assertion or statement. 

LXXXVUL Law of the Prone Hand. — The prone 
hand lies easily opened with the palm dow7iward. 

Note 1. — The language of the Prone Hand is : 
reservation, negation, repression, dejection, imprecation^ 
secrecy, scorn, contempt, despair, destruction, desolation, 
awe, solemnity, treachery, concealment, execration, de- 
preciation, — in withholding, divesting, abandoning, forbid- 
ding, denying, prohibiting, restraining, refraining, arresting, 
checking. Both Hands Prone — diffusion, dissolution, 
general destruction; — the opposite to the Supine. 

Note 2. — The Prone Hand is used: to put down, 
to illustrate super-position, super-incumbency, negation, 
or any repressive emotion. It denotes a resting upon 



142 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

literally as darkness overhanging the landscape, or figura- 
tively doom impending over the criminal. Sadness is 
gloom overhanging the spirit; in restraining or prohibiting 
one will rests upon another, so both cases properly take 
the Prone Hand. 

Note 3. — In Delsarte's illustration of the cube, 
this form of the hand holds down, restrains and controls, 
and is thus a stronger form of hand than the Supine. 

LXXXIX. Law of the Vertical Hand. — The 
Vertical Hand is thrown well back upon the wrist, 
tips of fingers upward, and palm outward from the 
speaker. 

Note 1. — The language of the Vertical hand is 
fear, disgust, repulsion, aversion, removal, abhorrence, ret- 
rogression. 

Note 2. — The Vertical Hand is used: to ward 
off, to repel, — the natural expression of fear and disgust. 

Note 3. — As applied to the cube, it means resist- 
ance ( keeping away ) opposition ( pushing away ) . 

XC. Law of the Pointing Hand. — The Pointing 
Hand is Ordinary or Emphatic according to the cir- 
cumstances under which it is used and the degrees of 
emphasis. In the Ordinary form the hand is loosely 
opened with forefinger extended; in the Emphatic form 
it is tightly closed with forefinger extended, and in 
reproach or contempt the back of the hand is upward 
as in the Prone. 




EXPRESSIONS OP THE HAND 

1. Supine Hand 2. Prone Hand 3. Firmness 

4. Index Hand 5. Accusation 6. Anger 

7. Oath 8. Fear 



EXPRESSIONS OF THE HANDS 143 

Note 1. — The language of the Pointing Hand is 
designation, close discrimination, specific reference, re- 
proach, contempt, derision, scorn, warning, caution, mild 
threatening, authority. 

Note 2. — The Pointing Hand is used: to point 
out or to limit; to call attention to particular ideas; to show 
authority or to accuse. 

XCL Law of the Clenched Hand. — The hand 
tightly clenched is frequently used in gesture. The 
tension of the clenched hand indicates the action of the 
will. 

Notel. — The language of the Clenched Hand is 
anger, hatred, strong determination, vehemence, defiance, 
desperate resolve, fierce threatening; the grasp, " tight-fisted/ 
avaricious, self-contained. 

Note 2. — The Clenched Hand is used in seizing, 
holding or grasping; in strong emphasis, vehement and 
impassioned declaration; in threatening and defiance; in 
anger, hatred and other intense and malicious passions, 
any strong action of the will. 

XCIL Law of Movements. — In gesticulation, 
movements of the hands pass through three stages, — 
The Preparation, Stroke and Return . 

/. Preparation is usually made on a vertical 
line half way between the front and side. 

2. The stroke, or vital movement of gesture, 
occurs on the emphatic syllable, that rhythm, or hat- 
mony of time, may exist between voice and body. 



144 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

3. The Return of the hand to the side or to the point 
of the next gesture should take place without abruptness. 

XCHL Law of the Anns. — Space may be so 
mapped out that the Direction which the arm takes in 
any gesture is easily indicated. 

The Common Directions of Gesture are: 

1. Front. 

2. Oblique . 

3. Lateral . 

4. Backward, 

In Elevation Gestures are : 

1. Horizontal . 

2. Descending. 

3. Ascending . 

Note 1. — The place of gesture is thus determined: 
An arc drawn from a point directly in front of the shoulder 
backward to the furthest point easily reached by the hand 
in an outward sweep is divided into three equal parts. 
This part of a circle with three equal parts has four points 
which are named Horizontal Front, Horizontal Oblique* 
Horizontal Lateral, and Horizontal Backward (marked 
H.F. , H. O. , H.L., H.B.). 

Draw a vertical line through each one of these points. 
Then draw two additional arcs parallel to the first, one 
above called Ascending, the other below called Descending, 
and the intersections of these with the vertical lines will 
mark Ascending Oblique, Ascending Lateral, Ascending 
Backward, Descending Front, Descending Oblique, De- 




DIRECTIONS OF THE HAND AND ARM IN GESTURE 



1. Horizontal 

2. Descending 

3. Ascending 



4. Front 

5. Oblique 

6. Lateral 



7. Backward 



MOVEMENTS OF THE ARMS 145 

scending Lateral, and Descending Backward directions 
which are marked A. F. , A. O. , etc. These arcs are 
not fixed like the Horizontal, but may slide upward and 
downward, the judgment of the speaker detei mining wheth- 
er the rise or fall of the hand shall be slight, medium or 
extreme to best illustrate the thought . 

Note 2. — The points mark the place for the stroke 
of the gesture, the hand in Preparation being raised some- 
what higher. 

XCIV. Law of Front Direction. — Ideas of near* 
ness, whether of object, thought or feeling, directness, 
strong emphasis y personal or particular address, gov- 
ern the Front Direction. 

XCV. Law of Oblique Direction. — Ideas of gen- 
erality, of indefiniteness, moderate emphasis, general 
reference and comparison, ( which requires, both hands ) 
govern the Oblique Direction. 

XCVL Law of Lateral Direction. — Ideas of ex- 
pansion, extreme distance, repulsion, aversion, and 
contrast and universality ( which requhe both hands ) 
take the Lateral Direction. 

X CVII. Law of Backward Direction. — Ideas of 
obscurity and remoteness govern the Backward Di- 
rection. 

Note. — Backward direction is used in speaking 
of the past time, remote and obscured by years. 



146 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

XCVIIL Law of Horizontal. — Horizontal Eleva- 
tion is the realm of the Intellect. 

Note. — Horizontal Elevation is used in general 
thought and illusions; such as ordinary statement or descrip- 
tion, reference to surrounding objects, common address 
the realm of equality . 

XCIX. Law of Descending. — Descending Eleva- 
tion is the realm of the Will. 

Note. — The Descending Elevation is used in strong 
emphasis; to show determination or renunciation; to express 
inferiority or inequality and everything that is base and 
ignoble. 

C. Law of the Ascending. — Ascending Elevation 
is the realm of the Imagination . 

Note. — Ascending Elevation is used in purely 
imaginative flights; in fine poetic and exalted thought, to 
show superiority greatness, an unfolding or lifting up liter- 
ally or figuratively; in exultation, sublimity and all the 
noble emotions; in physical, mental or emotive elevation. 

CI. Law of Double Gestures. — Both hands used 
simultaneously in gesture upon the same point of di- 
rection and Elevation, join feeling to force and empha- 
size or intensify the meaning by adding to it the idea 
of expansion, completeness and universal application . 

CIL Law of Special Gestures. — Special Gestures, 

usually imitative, may be used when they add meaning. 

Note. — Great judgment must be exercised in using 
Imitative Gestures; they to be used little in serious discourse. 



INTRODUCTORY MOVEMENTS 147 

CIII. Law of Straight and Curved Lines. — As 
Straight lines are indicative of strength and Curved 
lines of beauty in gesture, the movements of the hand 
should be in harmony with the sentiment. 

Note 1. — Straight Lines denote strength and 
power; as in bold, determined, abrupt and rugged language 
and in all emphasis . 

Note 2. — Curved Lines express that which is 
beautiful, graceful, descriptive, genial, grand, sublime or 
exultant . 

CIV. Law of Introductory Movements. — We find 
that much of a speaker's power lies in his ability to 
properly approach his hearers ', and this is true in a 
mental as well as in a physical sense . To so place 
himself before them as to gain their attention, respect, 
favorable judgment and sympathy with his theme, 
shottld be his utmost endeavor . To this end great 
care should be given to personal appearance and pro- 
priety, manners as well as matter . He should avoid 
alike, timidity and arrogance, be gentlemanly, defer- 
ential, sincere and full of his subject. 

Note. — It will be observed that this law applies 
not only to the public speaker but to man in every possible 
relation of life ; and not alone in our Introductory Move- 
ments but sustained throughout the entire period of 
our contact with our fellows. 

CV. Law of Velocity.-— Velocity is inversely pro- 
portionate to the mass moved and the force moving . 



148 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

Note 1. — Depth of emotion and large, profound 
thoughts require deliberate, slow movements while light 
thoughts and superficial emotions move more rapidly; 
in this way the appreciation and the intensity of thought 
and feeling may be determined, by the velocity of motion. 

Note 2. — The Law of Velocity applies to the 
movement of Voice as well as Gesture. 

CVL Law of Sequence. — Impression must precede 
expression. After impression the logical order of action 
in expression is 1. the eye, 2. the body, 3. the voice. 
In gesture, motion should pass from the center out- 
ward, employing successively the various members till 
it appears at the circumference as gesture. To illus- 
trate : when the emotion reaches the arm for expres- 
sion the chest starts the action, the upper arm moves 
first, then the forearm, and last the hand. The law 
of Sequence is observed in all graceful movements as 
walking, bowing, gesticulating, etc. , without which 
there is no grace. 

CVII. Law of Emotions. — Tranquility being 
mind at rest, any departure from this condition is 
termed an Emotion — literally a moving out. " 
When Tranquility is disturbed, the mind becomes ei- 
ther Elevated or Depressed, or is touched by a Noble 
or an Ignoble Influence. When Tranquil Man moves 
out the Angel or the Demon moves in. 

Note. — According to the Degree of Force of the 
Mental and Emotive Disturbance we have ; — 



RHYTHM 149 

1. sentiments, are slight emotions which 
may be the habitual state of the individual — his tem- 
perament color — and which usually do not manifest them- 
selves by marked external signs except that they may al- 
ways be detected in the voice and generally in the counte- 
nance. 

Examples of Sentiments. — Cheerfulness, sadness, envy, 
perplexity, courage, hopefulness. 

2. emotion, is amoving of the mind and feel- 
ings, a disturbed state manifesting itself by pronounced 
external signs. 

Examples of Emotions. — Mirth, eagerness, surprise, 
fear, admiration, pride, veneration, adoration, defiance, pity, 
wonder, amazement, vexation, sorrow, grief, shame, scorn, 
suspicion. 

3. passions are emotions so violent that they 
partly or wholly control the person. 

Examples of Passions. — Terror, anguish, rage, fury, 
horror, hatred, joy, love, exultation, anger, despair, malice, 
melancholy, revenge, remorse, jealousy ( active ) . 

CVHL Law of Rhythm. — The action of the heart 
consists of an accented and an unaccented beat. In 
breathing we observe the same pulsations. Speech too 
has its heavy and light. In an agreeable voice we can 
always hear those gentle undulations of force that we 
call its rhythm — so in inflection and emphasis, and 
we find a similar pidsation in gestures, an unaccented 
beat preceeding the stroke. In heart beat, breath or in 
speech Rhythm is nature's effort to maintain an equi- 
librium. 



150 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

emphasis of force should be immediately 3 preceded 
by diminution of force. 

inflections- Rising slides should be balanced by 
slight Falling slides, and vice versa. 

gesture. In gesture there should be a gentle incli- 
nation or swaying of the body or some part of it in the di- 
rection opposite to that in which every gesture occurs and 
just preceding the stroke. The trained, lesponsive body 
reacts naturally before expression, especially before taking 
a strong attitude. In slight gesture the reaction should be 
less, the recoil being governed by the intensity of the 
thought, the motion by the emotion. 

Note 1. — This law of rhythm applied to gesture 
Delsarte called " Opposition of Agents, " and a failure to 
apply the law " Parallelism. " 

Note 2. — The finest results are produced by at 
tention to the Law of Rhythm in Speech. In still another 
sense beside emphasis, inflection, and gesture, the law may 
be observed. In arrangement of an interesting discourse 
the pendulum of oratory should alternate between mirth 
and pathos, argument and illustration. 

Note 3. — Among the many examples, Rhythm 
alternation or opposition in nature may be mentioned the 
following : In life, — heart, pulse, breath ; in voice, — 
force, pitch, time ; in nature, — vibrations of sound, light 
and heat; day - night ; heat - cold ; noise - silence ; effort- 
rest ; work- play ; ebb - flow; wind - calm ; sunshine - 
shadow ; expansion— contraction ; vowel— consonant; 
war - peace ; mountain - valley ; upheaval — subsidance; 
light - darkness; life -death; cycles of nature. 

So firmly is this principle grounded in our lives that 
the mind often supplies the unaccented beat. 



POISE 151 

" It would seem that everything moves to measure. In 
the universe this orderly principle swings to and fro, like 
the shuttle of a great loom, and the soul of man finds the 
highest correspondence of this gigantic rhythm in the 
pulses of music. " 

" For Nature beats in perfect time, 

x\nd rounds with rhythm her every rune, 

Whether she works in land or sea, 

Or hide under ground her alchemy. 

Thou canst not wave thy staff in air, 

Or dip thy paddle in the lake, 

But it carves the bow of beauty there, 

And the ripples in rhyme the oar forsake. " 



CIX. Law of Poise, or Subjugation. — Considered 
with reference to Truth itself, which we in our best 
manner should ever express and clothe with living 
reality, man is but the mechanism concerned in speech , 
mind being the controlling pcwer. Hence, a proper 
enforcement of Truth demands the instrument be un- 
der complete subjugation and guidance of the directing 
mind. The eyes, the hands y the lips, are simply the 
agents of expression, not the source. 

When mind exercises perfect mastery over man, 
all the delicate parts and adjustments of the mechan- 
ism will respond to the directing touch, with all per- 
fectly balanced the results will prove worthy of the 
instrumenty the master of the instrument, and that 
Great Master from whom emanates all Truth. 



152 SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

Note 1. — The inadequate voice, imperfect enun- 
ciation, expressionless modulation, inappropriate gestures, 
nervousness that fetters the tongue and hampers the action, 
indecision of movement, hands ever in the way, and fingers 
that will not keep still, — these are all violations of the 
above law. 

Note 2. — Perfect subjugation of body to the will, 
and the mind to the soul, is termed Poise. The poised 
mind is calm and self-possessed ; the poised body strong, 
the poised voice sympathetic and well attuned, graceful 
and responsive. Poise is a balance of forces. We poise 
the body by allowing it to be entirely controlled by gravity, 
the voice by thought. We may poise the mind and soul 
by coming under subjection to the Infinite Will and Spirit, 
" Obedience is the measure of ability ; when second na- 
ture it becomes perfect freedom. " Poise is a paralleling 
of life to God's will. 

CX. Law of Sympathy. — Everything effectiv* in 
speech requires sympathy on the part of both speaker 
and hearers , resulting in earnestness, fervor, directness 
and radiation on the speaker's part and attention and 
receptiveness on the part of the listeners. The speak- 
er must understand his theme and his audience y and 
the hearer be in a condition to appropriate what is 
said. 

Note. — An imaginary line from the speaker to 
each hearer should transmit sympathy in the form of at- 
tention in one direction and radiation from the speaker out- 
ward in the other, so every member of the audience will 
feel himself particularly addressed, the thought being shar- 
ed alike by speaker and hearer. 



c,SttPA7-ty, 



WITH 



THOUGHT AND AUDIENCE 




With 



ART PERIODS 153 

CXI. Law of Art Periods. — In the natural de- 
velopment of any of the varied Forms of Art it passes 
through four stages, namely: — 

/. Colossal: Crude y Rough , Vital. 

2. Effective : Attractive — Beautiful or Hideous. 

3. Realistic : Close imitation of nature. 

4. Suggestive : With power to teach and ennoble. 

CXII. Law of Application. — The most important 
applications of the foregoing Laws may be of value 
in the following : 

1. The Pulpit. 

2. The Bar. 

3. The Stage. 

4. The Home. 

5. The Teacher's Desk. 

6. The Reading Desk. 

7. The Lecture Platform. 

8. The Business World. 



THE 
ART OF RENDERING 



A condensed and comprehensive treatise on the culture of the Three- 
fold Nature and the Mental Method of Heading 
and Speaking 

To be used in connection with 

FENNO'S SCIENCE OF SPEECH 

Comprising 

Chart of Delsartean Trinities, Aesthetic Physical Culture, Physi- 
ology and Culture of Breath and Voice, Gesture, Sixteen Steps 
in Rendering with Analyses and Classical Studies for 
Practice, Charts and Illustrations. Designed to 
be used as a text-book, in the class-room 
and for private study as well as by 
readers and speakers generally 

By FRANK H. FENNO, A.M., F.S.Sc. 

Teacher. Lecturer, and Author of "Fenno's Elocution," "Lectures on 
Elocution," etc., Compiler of "Fenno's Favorites" 
Revised and Enlarged by 

MRS. FRANK H. FENNO, B. 0. 



DEVELOPMENT OF NATURAL EXPRESSION. 

Growth from within outward. 
I. Thought Culture. IV. Voice Culture. 

II. Feeling Culture. V. Breath Culture. 

III. Physical Culture. VI. Impression-Expression. 



For all who value health and grace of body — who read, speak, or 
converse; and especially for Ministers, Lawyers, Teachers, Busi- 
ness Men, and Ladies and Gentlemen who wish to speak and read 
well # with pure tones, true expression, correct gestures, and pleas- 
ing, persuasive, or convincing effect. 

Twelvemo, Cloth, 325 pages; Price $1.50. 



FENNO'S ELOCUTION 



— OR — 



How To Read and Speak 



A COMPREHENSIVE AND SYSTEMATIC SERIES OF EXERCISES 

FOR 

Gesture, Calisthenics, and Cultivation of the 

Voice 

A COLLECTION OF 150 LITERARY GEMS FOR READING AND 

SPEAKING. 

By FRANK H. FENNO, A.M., F.S.Sc. 

IN FOUR PARTS: 

I. Theoretical. III. Helps to Study. 

II. Vocal Culture. IV. Readings and Recitals. 



A WORK thoroughly adapted to the wants of both the student 
and the amateur reader. It covers every essential point in 
Articulation, Modulation and Gesture. The chapter on "Vocal 
Culture" carefully outlines, with exercises, an important feature 
to proper cultivation and development. "Helps to Study" show 
clearly the importance of care and accuracy, and assure a degree of 
perfection, to all who thoroughly master them, well worth striving 
for. The "Readings and Recitals" have been selected with the great- 
est care, and throughout show the work of an accomplished 
elocutionist. 



i2mo, Cloth, Extra, 414 pages; Price, $1.25. 



FENNO'S FAVORITES 

— FOR — 

Reading and Speaking 

— COMPILED BY — 

FRANK H. FENNO, A.M., F.S.Sc. 



TEN NUMBERS NOW READY. 



Nos. i, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9 and io 
Contain ioo Choice Selections for Reading and Speaking. 

Nos. 4 and 8 
Contain 50 Choice Dialogues for Speaking and Acting, WITH DEF- 
INITE PARTICULARS AS TO COSTUMES, SCENES, 
ENTREES, ETC. 

These selections have been edited with much care by Prof. Fenno, 
who is thoroughly acquainted with the various tastes and capacities 
of readers of all ages, and with the field of literature best suited 
to this purpose. The need of variety and general usefulness has 
been kept steadily in view. The pieces are all of a high character. 
A judicious variety of prose and poetry, of humor, pathos and trag- 
edy. Those best adapted for elocutionary purposes have neen chosen 
in each case. Many pieces are original, and appear for the first 
time in these volumes. 

Each number is prefaced with a practical essay on some branch 
of elocution. The books are uniform in appearance. The type is 
large and clear, the paper good, and the size handy. 

The merit of these books is proven by the favor with which they 
have been received. More than 200,000 copies have already been sold. 



Substantially bound, i2mo, Paper 30 cts. each. 
Each Number Complete in Itself. 



FENNO'S FAVORITES, NO. 1.— PRINCIPLES 



The Reaper's Dream. 

Our Magna Charta. 

The Ride of Death. 

A Wood Carver's Ro- 
mance. 

William Brown of Oregon. 

Interviewing Mrs. 
Young. 

On the Concord Road. 

The Slave's Dream. 

Jimmy Brown's Steam- 
Chair. 

Unknown. 

Fatherless Joe. 

Scene at Niagara Falls. 

"Don't Feel too Big." 

Columbia Crumb. 

The Leap of Roushan 
Beg. 

Greatest Walk on Record . 

Bessie's Christmas 
Dream. 

The World We Live in. 

Our Welcome. 

The Well-Digger. 

The Blind Preacher. 

Larrie O'Dee. 

Found Dead. 

The Jiners. 

The Mount of the Holy 

A Pathetic Old Man. 

The Fireman's Prayer. 

Life. 

Lookout Mountain. 

The Emancipation of 

Man. 
Samson. 

Waste Not, Want Not. 
The Old Sergeant. 



Wapshofs Woes. 

The Palace o'the King. 

In the Mining Town. 

Yacob Wegenheiseran- 
genfeldts Setting a Hen. 

The Jackdaw of Rheims. 

The Maiden's Prayer. 

Bosbyscheirs Confession. 

Erin's Flag. 

Trouble in the Choir. 

Brother Watkins. 

After the Sale. 

Asking the Guv'nor. 

Father Roach. 

Baggage Master Brick's 
Lunch-Can. 

The Lightning-Rod Dis- 
penser. 

An Original Love Story. 

The Doom of Claudius 
and Cynthia. 

Elsie's Child. 

Kentucky Philosophy. 

A Thanksgiving Dinner. 

The Honest Deacon. 

The Two Mills. 

Glad Tidings. 

The Fate of Sergeant 
Thin. 

The Two Ideals. 

Night on Shiloh. 

The German Family on 
the Cars. 

GUderoy. 

The Child's Dream. 

Mind Shildren. 

Cheerfulness. 

Building the Years. 

Rhymes for House-Clean- 
ing Times. 



FENNO'S FAVORITES, NO. 2.— HOW TO 



The Curriculum of Life. 
A Visit to Jack Frost's 

Pfl.l3i(*G 

A Rhyme of the Navy. 

She Wanted to Learn 
Elocution. 

The Destruction of Pom- 
peii. 

Suffering and Hope. 

The Stern Parent. 

A New Declaration. 

The Golden Axe. 

A Boy's Lecture on 
•Knives/ 

Stonewall Jackson's 
Death. 

Was it Job that had 
Warts on Him. 

On the Stairway. 

Roland and Diana. 

The Irish Schoolmaster. 

A Picture of the Past. 

Piano-Music. 

Relation of the Mosquito 
to the Human Family. 

"That's but Nat'ral." 

Curfew Bells. 

When the Clock Strikes 
XXI. 

The Arctic Martyrs. 

The Lion's Ride. 

Smelling by Telephone. 

The Ten Virgins. 

How Jake Found Him. 

Hiawatha Johnson's 
Wooing. 

How Uncle Henry Dyed 
His Hair. 

Wendell Phillips. 

"The Roil Bengol Tag- 
ger," 

The Pilgrim's Vision. 

A Solemn Warning. 



The Humble Servant 

Girl. 
Our Ain Countrie. 
The Pewee and the Wild 

Rose. 
Mr. Grimshaw's Mistake. 
The Recognition. 
An Arctic Aurora. 
A Welsh Classic. 
Negro Worship in the 

South. 
For a Warning. 
Woman vs. Heroism. 
Willie Wee's Grace. 
Drinking a Tear. 
Fat and Lean. 
Winter in Louisville. 
The Sioux Chief's Daugh- 

The Sad-Eyed Stranger. 

How we Tried to Whip 
the Teacher. 

"Peace, be Still!*" 

Sunday Fishin'. 

The Damsel of Peru. 

The New Era. 

The Insulted Pig. 

The Great Commander. 

The Circle of Death. 

The After-Dinner Orator. 

The Storming of the Ice- 
Palace. 

A Ballad of Capri. 

Cho-che-Bang and Chi- 
chil-Bloo. 

A Musical Contest. 

Fridolin. 

The Story of Don Vejez. 

Bachelor Brown. 

The Christmas Prayer. 

Uncle Skinflint's Christ- 
mas Gift. 



OF GESTURE. 

The Engine. 

S'posin'. 

Jane Conquest. 

The Lady or the Tiger. 

Love on Skates. 

A Baptist on Presby- 
terians. 

God's Beverage. 

Hannah Jane. 

The Palmetto and the 
Pine. , 

A Railway Matinee. 

The Law of Death. 

The Easter Altar-Cloth. 

The Ballad of Hiram 
Hover. 

On the Other Train. 

The Old Fair Story. 

The Ship on Fire. 

My Madcap Darling. 

The Tides are Rising. 

The Minstrel's Curse. 

Patient Mercy Jones. 

Sunrise on the Mississippi. 

Try the Fun. 

Searching for the Slain. 

The Briefless Barrister. 

Jet. 

A Negro's Account of the 
Prodigal Son. 

Durandarte and Balerma. 

The Dead Colonel in the 
Blue. 

Paying Toll. 

Annals of the Poor. 

The Photograph Album. 

The Martyrs of Sandomir 

Uncle Moses and the 
Comet. 

Building and Being. 

IMPERSONATE." 

The Culprit Fay. 

Nancy. 

The Story of Ingomar. 

" One of the Little Ones." 

The Old Reading Class. 

Off Barnegat. 

The Going of Arthur. 

The Tapestry Weavers. 

AuntJemima'aCourtship. 

Heroes of the Land of 

Penn. 
Dot Maid Mit Hazel 

Hair. 
An Italian Legend. 
Night Brings out the 

Stars. 
The "Shiner" and the 

Waifs. 
The Bobbin Ran Out. 
The Bugle. 
Entering In. 
Diffidence. 
Brother Gardner on 

Wickedness. 
A Smart Boy. 
Mansie Wanch's First 

and Last Play. 
The Hermit of the Cave. 
The First Sabbath. 
New Year's Chimes. 
Little Elfin's Piea. 
Our Choir. 
A New Year Address. 
The M-Man wich didn't 

drink W-W-W- Water. 
The Baby is Dead. 
The Unfinished Song. 
The Maniac's Love. 
Man, His Proverbial 111- 

Luck and Continual 

Foolishness. 
Bettina Mazzi. 
" Over the Range," 



FENNO'S FAVORITES, NO. 3.— CULTURE 



A Hero of 1780. 

God in the Sunrise. 

Before the Wedding. 

Neddie's Thanksgiving 
Visit. 

Purpose in Life. 

A Little Child. 

The Tender Heart. 

Big Ben Bolton. 

The First Predicted 
Eclipse. 

Sixteen and Sixty. 

The Ballad of Beffana. 

Clerk Muggins. 

A Life's Hymn. 

In the Catacombs. 

Went Out That Way. 

Come Under My Plaidie. 

The Prettiest Girl. 

A Sly Old Rat. 

Handsome Girl In a 
Crowded Car. 

Death. 

Old Amazin* Grace. 

The Cranes of Ibycus. 

The Pretty Roller Skater. 

Reflections on the 
Needle. 

The Hot Axle. 

The Fountain of Youth. 

Uncle Ned's Defence. 

Arkansas Justice. 

The Way it is Said. 

'Der Dog und der Lob- 
ster." 

The Black Horse and His 
Rider. 

The Last Hymn. 

Fame. 

Curly-Head. 



The Irish Picket. 

How It Struck Jim. 

Gaffer Gray. 

Ethiopiomania. 

Unto Death. 

An Evening Idyl. 

The Removal. 

Bill Nye's Mine. 

The Seventh Plague of 
Egypt. 

When the Cows Come 
Home. 

Love at the Seaside. 

The Church Spider. 

"Dem Codicils." 

The Ancient Miner's 
Story. 

An Irish School. 

A Fight with the Flood. 

True Courage. 

A Single Hair. 

By the Shore of the River. 

How Kate Shelly Crossed 
the Bridge 

Difllcult Love-Making. 

The Alpine Flower. 

Keturah's Christmas. 

Six Times an Orphan. 

Five. 

The Surveyor and the 
School Ma'am. 

Miss M'Lindy's Court- 
ship. 

The Wandering Jew. 

The Valentine. 

A Donation Party. 

The Supper of St. Greg- 
ory. 

Minding the Hens. 

Our Baby. 



OF THE VOICE. 

The School at Talladega. 

The Friars' Christmas. 

The Two Roads. 

The Gladiator. 

Pat and the Frogs. 

What a Woman Can Do. 

The Neglected Pattern. 

Leadville Jim. 

Parson Jinglejaw and the 
Sewing Circle. 

A Tussle with Immi- 
grants. 

An Eastern Story. 

The Goat and the Swing. 

Major Jones's Courtship. 

The Lovers. 

The Mountain Snow- 
Wraith. 

Bossing a Bar'l in April. 

The Golden Gate. 

The Victim. 

What Drove Me into a 
Lunatic Asylum. 

Dave Briggs. 

Lasca. 

Sam's Letter. 

George Washington. 

Spectacles. 

The Quarrel. 

The Arithmetic Lesson. 

Brave Alta Wayne. 

The Ship of Faith. 

The Boy and the Frog. 

The Tragedy. 

The First Day. 

The Spinning-Whee 1 
Song. 

" Angels Bright and 
Fair." 



FENNO'S FAVORITES, 

A Drop of Ink. 
The Engineer's Story. 
A Boy Again. 
"Nearer to Thee.'* 
The Victor of Marengo. 
Since Mickey Got Kilt in 

the War. 
The Dark River. 
The Drummer-Boy of 

Kent. 
Sun Dust. 

A Lesson to Lovers. 
The Joys of Millionaires. 
Elizabeth Zane. 
Blood-Money. 
Her Evidence. 
The Puzzled Priest. 
The Farmer's Club. 
Courageous Johnny. 
"Cut, Cut Pehind." 
The Coliseum. 
The Monk's Magnificat. 
Mullins the Agnostic. 
The Flood and the Ark. 
German Opera. 
Italian Opera. 
The Clown's Romance. 
Death of Garfield. 
The Glacier Bed. 
The Ballad of Cassandra 

Brown. 
I'll be at Home Thanks- 

givin*. 
God's First Temples. 
The Man and the Foxes. 
Pompeii. 
The Spinning-Wheel 

Song. 
The Old Continentals. 
Sufferings of the Pilgrims. 



NO. 5.— READING— READING IN PUBLIC. 



A Rude Awakening. 

"God Knows." 

Geoffrey and Beatrice. 

Scientific Jones. 

My First Ax. 

A Small Boy's Composi- 
tion on Cats. 

A Ballad of the North. 

" Inasmuch." 

Heard them Counted. 

The Origin of Scandal. 

Mrs. Noodle's Conun- 
drum. 

Looking Out for Number 
One. 

No Kiss. 

Mrs. Piper. 

The Challenge. 

The Veterans. 

The Two Gates. 

The Bell of Zanora. 

A Man After Her Own 
Heart. 

Shadows on the Curtain. 

The Christening. 

I Want! I Want! 

The Unknown Speaker. 

The Joshua of 1776. 

"I'll Report to God the 
Reason Why." 

Josiah Allen at Saratoga. 

Sunset Prophecy. 

The Deacon's Courtship. 

Whiskey — Its Poetry and 

The Nine Suitors. 
In Answer. 
Penn's Monument. 
Th8 Dutchman and the 
Raven. 



Composition on the Ant- 
Eater. 

Jim's Little Pra'r. 

"Them Flurdy Hens." 

The Loom of Life. 

An Essay on Butter- 
Making. 

An Idyl. 

Miss Witehazel and Mr. 
Thistlepod. 

Michael's Mallet. 

The Man Who Would 
Not Sleep With His 
Brother. 

Ginevra. 

The King and the Child. 

Giving Mrs. Scudder the 
Small-Pox. 

"Yes, I'm Guilty." 

The Elf-Child. 

Sambo's Dilemma. 

The Pilot's Story. 

For the Chief's Daugh- 

Burdock's Music Box. 

Rebel, or Loyalist. 

A Little Peach. 

Love Flying in at the 

Window. 
The Whistler. 
A Spool of Thread 
The Bell of Liberty. 
Because. 
A Culprit. 
Taking an Elevator. 
The Boy's Complaint. 
He Never Told a Lie. 
"Ask Mamma." 
Let Down the Bars. 
The Catholic Psalm. 



FENNO'S FAVORITES, 

The Hat. 

Miss Splicer Tries the 

Toboggan. 
Billy's Rose. 
David and Goliath.- 
My Guest. 

Der Oak und Der Vine. 
The Bride of Reichen- 

stein. 
A Sleigh-Ride. 
The Aesthetic Cat-Tail. 
The Lock of Hair. 
Joe Ford the Fireman. 
The Chariot Race. 
The Tartar who Caught 

a Tartar. 
Tommy's Composition 

on Women. 
Lincoln's Last Dream. 
Rome Wasn't Built in a 

Day. 
Waking the Dead. 
Eve. 

The Evils of War. 
How Cyrus Laid the 

Cable. 

Sir William Napier and 
Little Joan. 

Disadvantages of Moral 
Courage. 

A Church Scene. 

A Permanent Boarder. 

Farmer Jonathan's De- 
cision. 

Tim. 

Dream of Pilate's Wife. 

Aunt Nabby. 

The Drunkard's Dream. 

The Earth. 

The Light on Deadman's 
Bar. 



NO. 6.— SCHOOLROOM 
WORDS TO TEACHERS, 

Pat and the Deacon. 

James A. Garfield. 

A Love Song. 

Some Old Friends. 

The Modern Ravens. 

Why Old Jasper Was Not 
Sent to the Peniten- 
tiary. 

Kit Carson's Wife. 

The Chimes of Amster- 
dam. 

A Voice from the Poor- 
House. 

Behind Time. 

The Comet. 

Paudeen O 'Rafferty's 
Say-Voyage. 

In School-Days. 

"Please to Say Amen." 

Mark Twain as a Farmer. 

On the Frontier. 

Murder Will Out. 

Darby and Joan. 

The Bible and Liberty. 

The King's Daughters. 

An Inquiring Friend. 

A Christmas Ballad. 

The Cripple Boy's Story. 

The Story of a Stowaway. 

Josiah and the Mermaid. 

The Rum Evil. 

The Freckled Faced Girl. 

Eighteen and Eighty. 

Our Craft is Small. 

An Aesthetic House- 
keeper. 

Hatem Tol. 

MacDonald's Charge at 
Wagram. 

Petit Jean. 

A Rogue. 

The Moneyless Man. 



ELOCUTION— A FEW 

The Bashful Man's Story. 

Has Charity Begun. 

An August Idyl. 

The Round of Life. 

The Doctrine of Chance. 

Ticket O'Leave. 

Art Matters in Indiana. 

Virginny. 

Harry's Christmas. 

Rome and Carthage. 

A Scene at Jericho. 

Washington. 

Grandpa and Bess. 

Partnership. 

One Glass too Much. 

Burdette in Toledo. 

"Remember the Sabbath 

Day." 
Shacob's Lament. 
In Liquor. 

Jerusalem by Moonlight. 
The Battle Above the 

Clouds. 
The Irishman's Pano- 
rama. 
Review of the Grand 

Army. 
The Worm of the Still. 
How Terry Saved His 

Bacon. 
Caedmon. 
Death-Bed of Benedict 

Arnold. 
The Adventures of Milti- 

ades Peterkin Paul. 
A Tarry town Romance. 
The Flying Dutchman. 
The Swell. 
Flash — The Fireman's 

Story. 
Fritz and His Betsy Fall 

Out. 



FENNO'S FAVORITES, NO. 7.— THE MISSION OF SPEECH. 



Marcel. 

The Swan Song. 

The Sword of Gram. 

The Cow and the Bishop. 

Indifference. 

The Squire's Bargain. 

The Thanksgiving in Bos- 
ton Harbor. 

As the Pigeon Flies. 

The Minuet- 
Grandma's Angel. 

Tommy Brown. 

The Ladder of St Augus- 
tine. 

The Old Actor's Story. 

The Fading Leaf. 

"Limpy Tim." 

A Sleepy Little School. 

Andre and Hale. 

Echo and the Ferry. 

The Finding of the Cross. 

A Second Trial. 

One Niche the Highest. 

The Good Reciter. 

Baby in Church. 

Aunt Jemina on the 
Woman Question. 

An Incident of the War. 

The Ride of Grand- 
mother Lee. 

"No Saloons Up There." 

The Battle of Bunker 
Hill. 

Proof Positive. 

Ancient and Modern 
Oratory. 

Little Christel. 

The Idiot Lad. 

A Battery in Hot Action. 

One of the Heroes. 



Jimmy Brown's Sister's 
Wedding. 

The Spanish Mother. 

Address to Bartholdi's 
Statue. 

The Scholar in Politics. 

The Lady Judith's Vision. 

The Old Woman's Rail- 
way Signal. 

Count Zinzendorf . 

The Book Agent Beats 
the Bandit. 

In the Signal Box. 

Jean Valjean, the Convict. 

Money Musk. 

The King and the Cottage. 

The Value of Punctuality. 

The Two Villages. 

Mary's Night Ride. 

Perplexity. 

A Yachtman's Speech. 

The Sailing of King Olaf . 

Bill, the Engineer. 

"Kiss Me, Mamma." 

Zarafl. 

The Army of the Potomac. 

A New Year's Deed. 

Cavern Scene from 
"She." 

A Girl Heroine. 

"Wash Dolly up Like 
That." 

What's an Anthem? 

A Born Orator. 

There is No Death. 

The Land of Shining Gold. 

A Tale of Long Ago. 

A Public School Idyl. 

The New South. 

The Tear of Repentance. 



How it Struck Jim. 

Nellie's Victory. 

The Telegram. 

Katrina's Visit to New 
York. 

Mary Garvin. 

Sir Rupert's Wife. 

Lead the Way. 

Something Great. 

Farmer Stebbins at 
Ocean Grove. 

Toussaint L'Overture. 

The Preacher's Vacation. 

We've Always Been Pro- 
vided For. 

Aunt Polly's "George 
Washington." 

Lady Wentworth. 

A Lesson of Thankful- 
ness. 

The McSwats Swear Off. 

The Time to Hate. 

The Substitute. 

A Week of Practice. 

The Flag's Birthday. 

A Russian Courtship. 

La Fayette. 

Garfield's Ride. 

The Two Brothers. 

The Ruling Passion. 

The Drummer Boy of 
Mission Ridge. 

The Pencil Tree. 

The Fancy-Work Maiden. 

The Lady Rohesia. 

Gettysburg. 

A Boy's Essay on Co- 
lumbus. 

Echo Dell. 



FENNO'S FAVORITES, NO. 9.— A WORD 



With Books. 

Elam Chase's Fiddle. 

Napoleon. 

The Little Western Man. 

He Danced at her 

Wedding. 
The Story of the Cable. 
The White Cross of Savoy . 
The Daffodils. 
Joe Bird, the Impostor. 
When Grandpa was a 

Little Boy. 
The Demon of the Fire. 
A New Year's Address. 
The Prayer-Gage. 
Bach'ler Bill's Thanks- 

givin*. 
The Violin's Voice. 
Alec Yeaton's Son. 
Her Excuse. 
The Policeman's Story. 
Dark-Eyed Mehetabel. 
A Notable Tilt. 
"Let Your Women Keep 

Silence in the 

Churches. '• 
What She Said and What 

She Did. 
Extract from "Michael 

Strogoff." 
A Dream of the Sea. 
Indirection. 

The Photograph Habit. 
"I wish I was a Grown- 
up." 
ThanksgivuV Pumpkin 

Pies. 
A Child's Power. 
The Sailor Boy's Dream. 
Young America in Pin- 

The Transition Woman; 
Or, Sailing by the Stars, 
Not by the Wake. 



A Gettysburg Sketch. 

Classical Music. 

RIvermouth Rocks. 

A Thank- Ye-Ma' am. 

The Cheerful Locksmith. 

Unfinished Music. 

The Bootblack. 

No Room for Mother. 

The Liberty Bell. 

There's a Beautiful Land 
by the Spoiler Untrod. 

Mrs. Blake's Visit to the 
White Mountains. 

In the Autumn Weather. 

Herve Riel. 

Take Your Hands out of 
Your Pockets. 

The Little Martyr of 
Smyrna. 

The Wail of an Anach- 
ronistic Survival. 

Intemperance. 

On the Shores of Tennes- 
see. 

The Gauger and the 
Sibyl. 

Heroes. 

Wakin* the Young 'Uns. 

A Woman's Sentiment. 

The Engineer's Last Run. 

The Agnostic by his 
Brother's Bier. 

Selling the Baby. 

Reuben James. 

The Tea-Kettle and the 
Cricket. 

Chimneys. 

When this Old Flag wa3 
New. 

The Bartholdi Statue. 

Which Side Are You On? 

Mother's Doughnuts. 

Glimpses into Cloudland. 



FENNO'S FAVORITES, NO. 10.— ELOCUTION 



The Debating Society. 

A Dream of Song. 

Two Passengers. 

Dan Peri ton's Ride. 

The Kaiser-Blume. 

Making Hopkins* Last 
Moments Easy. 

La Petite Coquette. 

The Kitchen Clock. 

Dicky's Christmas. 

Haunted Castles. 

Flattering Grandma. 

The End of All. 

A Legend of Hesse. 

Examined for a Regis- 
tered Letter. 

The Forging of the Anchor. 

Lessons. 

Saved by a Song. 

The Dark Bridal. 

Beggar Jim. 

Time. 

Better Things. 

Impediment Joe. 

The Perpetuity of Nature. 

The Bell of Atri. 

The City Choir. 

Home, Sweet Home. 

The Old Minstrel. 

The Rivulet. 

Words. 

The Meekest Man. 

The Women of Mumbles 
Head. 

The Devil's Wife. 

Old Daddy Turner. 

The Ballad of Breakneck. 

The Little Middle 
Daughter. 



The Light from over the 
Range. 

Embarkation of the Pil- 
grims. 

The Lost Chime. 

"Dat ar Bill." 

Aux Italiens. 

Enchantment. 

Only a Newsboy. 

My First Love. 

The Outcast's Return. 

Beethoven's Moonlight 
Sonata. 

The Lifeboat. 

Engaged. 

A Summer Lesson. 

The Festal Day has 
Come. 

The Love-Knot. 

The Minister's Daughter. 

Greatness of the Universe. 

"Come Unto Me." 

Which was the Richer? 

The Volunteer Organist. 

Like Mother Used to 

The Fiddling Parson. 

The Engineer's Story. 

Proof vs. Argument. 

The Gray Champion. 

Hide and Seek. 

The Flag on Fort Sumter. 

The Queen's Jewels. 

At the Loom. 

The Month of Apple 

Blossoms. 
What the Echo Said. 
Arlon. 
A Child's Dream of a Star. 



TO PARENTS. 

The Legend of the Two 
Kings. 

Nott Shott. 

Ali's Punishment. 

Aunt Tabltha. 

The Pen and the Tongue. 

"There will be Briars 
where Berries Grow." 

The Dream of Greatness. 

Old Kitchen Reveries. 

A Laughing Chorus. 

Women — A Girl's Essay. 

Johnny's Pocket. 

They Had no Poet and 
so They Died. 

The Blind See. 

In a Hundred Years. 

A Lesson to Lovers. 

Commerce. 

The Soldier's Reprieve. 

He Could Argyfy. 

The Battle of Naseby. 

Grandma at the Mas- 
querade. 

Destruction of Pompeii. 

Only a Tramp. 

Bill Mason's Bride. 

The Legend of Adlernfel. 

Baby's Autograph. 

The Song of Monterey. 

That Awful Ghost. 

Ah in Each. 

A Ballad of Brave 
Women. 

The Kitten of the Regi- 
ment. 

The Old Clock on the 
Stair. 

A Camp Meeting in 

Unseen Yet Seen. 

Midsummer. 

The Pedagogue's Wooing. 



IN THE PULPIT. 

In the Cross of Christ I 
Glory. 

Disappointing. 

Manhood. 

Light on the Hill-Tops. 

The Punkin Frost. 

The New Pastor. 

Back From the War. 

St. Nicholas. 

Lost and Found. 

Went into Hieroglyphics. 

Eternal Justice. 

The Dying Shoemaker. 

A Day of Our Country. 

Trouble in the "Amen 
Corner." 

Indignant Nellie. 

All Hands Lie Down. 

Monument Mountain. 

To Seneca Lake. 

The World's First Wed- 
ding. 

The Gleam in the House 
of Azah. 

Only in Dreams. 

The Fate of European 
Kings. 

A Turkish Tale. 

The Evergreen Mount- 
ains of Life. 

Expression. 

The Trooper. 

John Chinaman's Protest. 

The Miseries of War. 

Song of Marion's Men. 

Sockery Kadahcut's Kat. 

Sword and Plough. 

A Reminiscence of 
Andrew Jackson. 



CHOICE DIALOGUES. 

NO. 4 CONTAINS 

Important Suggestions for the Successful Presentation of Dialogues — the Stage — the 
Curtain — Background — Footlights — Effects — Rehearsals — Prompter — Repre- 
sentation — Costumes — Between the Acts — Tableaux — Pantomimes — Shadow 
Pantomimes — Acting Ballads — The Goblin Crew — Surprising Effects — The 
Talking Head or Magical Myth. 

The Indian's Revenge. 

"De Pervisions, Clem." 

"The Wimmin's School 
of Felosophy." 

The Letter. 

The Train to Mauro. 

Katie Maloney's Phi- 
losophy. 

Auction Mad. 

The Debating Society. 

The Poet Seeking a Pa- 
tron. 

A Warning to Women. 

The Dandy. 

The Photographer. 

Scene from Leah the 
Forsaken. 

City vs. Country. 

Mrs. Sniffles' Confession. 

The Conundrum Family. 



Thirty Thousand Dol- 
lars. 

Humbug. 

Queen Vashti. 

Cinderella. 

The Gridiron. 

The Yankee Marksman. 

The Paper Don't Say. 

The Chatterbox. 

TheCompeting Railroads. 

Sleepy Hollow Horticul- 
tural Society. 

The Will. 

No Law-Suits in Heaven. 

The Just Retribution. 

Wedding "Before De 
Wah." 

The Happy Family. 

The Female Exquisiter. 

Popping the Question. 



The Baffled Book- Agent. 

Uncle Nathan's Indian. 

The Unwilling Patient. 

The Soldier's Return. 

Courtship Under Diffi- 
culties. 

The Little Presbyterian 
Maid. 

The Conjugating German 

The Census Taker. 

• ' Awfully Lovely ' ' Phi- 
losophy. 

Romance at Home. 

The Brakeman at Church. 

Pedantry. 

Rolla and Alonzo. 

O'Hoolohan's Mistake. 

Turned Him Out. 

The Heirs. 

Literary Vanity. 



NO. 8 CONTAINS 

Important Suggestions for the Successful Presentation of Dialogues — The Stage — 
The Curtain — Background — Footlights — Effects — Rehearsals — Prompter — 
Representation — Costumes — Between the Acts — Tableaux — Pantomimes — 
Shadow Pantomimes — Acting Ballads — The Goblin Crew — Surprising Effects 
— The Talking Head or Magical Myth. 

Scene from the "Honey- 
moon." 

Floweret. 

The Death of Queen 
Elizabeth. 

Taking the Census. 

The Fire at Nolan's. 

An Easter Exercise. 

Scene from "Damon and 
Pythias." 

Watermelon Pickle. 

Scene from "The Lady of 
Lyons." 

Morning, Noon and 
Night. 

The Runaways. 

Gone with a Handsomer 
Man. 

Box and Fox. 

The Echo. 

The Flowers' Convention. 

Which is Right? 



Beauty's Queen. 

A Slight Mistake. 

The Doctor's Office. 

The Lost Bracelet. 

The Statue. 

All that Glitters is not 
Gold. 

Scene from "Richelieu." 

The Excitement at Ket- 
tleville. 

Corporal Punishment. 

A School Girl's Troubles. 

Elder Sniffle' s Courtship. 

Mrs. Malaprop and Cap- 
tain Absolute. 

Trial Scene from "Mer- 
chant of Venice." 

Advertising for a Servant. 

A New Year's Exercise. 

The Haunted Chamber. 

How Girls Study. 

The Disgusted Dutchman. 



Puss in Boots; or. Chari- 
ty Rewarded. 

Lessons in Cookery. 

Lochiel's Warning. 

The Rival Queens. 

Rip Van Winkle. 

Mulrooney's Mistake. 

The Debating Club. 

How Michael Fagan 
Cured his Pig. 

Winning a Widow. 

Teddy McGuire 
Paddy O'Flynn. 

Balcony Scene from 
"Romeo and Juliet." 

The Traveler. 

The School for Scandal. 

Sandy Macdonald's Sig- 
nal. 

Pat and the Postmaster. 

Choice of Trades. 



and 



Any of the aforementioned publications will be sent 
post-paid on receipt of price. 



EMERSON W. FENNO 

CHICAGO :: :: ILLINOIS 



SEP 23 1912 



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